G  K  CHE  STERTON 

A-  C  RITIC  AL  •  STUDY-  BY 

JULIUS  •  WEST 


G.    K,  CHESTERTON 


G.  K.  CHESTERTON 

A  CRITICAL  STUDY 

BY 

JULIUS  WEST 


NEW   YORK 
DODD,  MEAD  AND   COMPANY 

1916 


I  HAVE  to  express  my  gratitude  to  Messrs.  Burns  and  OateSj 
Messrs.  Methuen  and  Co.,  and  Mr.  Martin  Seeker  for  their 
kind  permission  to  quote  from  works  by  Mr.  G.  K.  Chesterton 
published  by  them.  I  have  also  to  express  my  qualified 
thanks  to  Mr.  John  Lane  for  his  conditional  permission  to 
quote  from  books  by  the  same  author  published  by  him. 
My  thanks  are  further  due,  for  a  similar  reason,  to  Mr. 
Chesterton  himself 


PRINTED   BY  WILLIAM   ERENDON   AND  SON,    LTD. 
PLYMOUTH,    ENGLAND 


a  s-: 


J.  C.    SQUIRE 


343^  J 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     INTRODUCTORY  H 

II.     THE   ROMANCER  23 

III.  THE   MAIvER  OF   MAGIC  59 

IV.  THE   CRITIC   OF   LARGE   THINGS  76 
V.     THE   HUMORIST  AND  THE   POET  91 

VI.     THE   RELIGION   OF  A  DEBATER  109 
VII.     THE  POLITICIAN  \\TIO  COULD  NOT 

TELL  THE   TIME  136 

VIII.     A  DECADENT  OF   SORTS  163 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  185 


INTRODUCTORY 

The  habit,  to  which  we  are  so  much  addicted, 
of  writing  books  about  other  people  who  have 
written  books,  will  probably  be  a  source  of 
intense  discomfort  to  its  practitioners  in  the 
twenty-first  century.  Like  the  rest  of  their 
kind,  they  will  pin  their  ambition  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  indulging  in  epigram  at  the  expense 
of  their  contemporaries.  In  order  to  lead  up 
to  the  achievement  of  this  desire  they  will 
have  to  work  in  the  nineteenth  century  and 
the  twentieth.  Between  the  two  they  will 
find  an  obstacle  of  some  terror.  The  eighteen 
nineties  will  lie  in  their  path,  blocking  the 
way  like  an  unhealthy  moat,  which  some 
myopes  might  almost  mistake  for  an  aquarium. 
All  manner  of  queer  fish  may  be  discerned  in 
these  unclear  waters. 

To  drop  the  metaphor,  our  historians  will 
find  themselves  confronted  by  a  startling 
change.  The  great  Victorians  write  no  longer, 
but   are   succeeded   by   eccentrics.      There   is 

11 


G.    X.   CHESTERTON 

'Kipling,  undoubtedly  the  most  gifted  of  them 
all,  but  not  everybody's  darling  for  all  that. 
There  is  that  prolific  trio  of  best-sellers, 
Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  Miss  Marie  Corelli,  and 
Mr.  Hall  Caine.  There  is  Oscar  Wilde,  who 
has  a  vast  reputation  on  the  Continent,  but 
never  succeeded  in  convincing  the  British  that 
he  was  much  more  than  a  compromise  between 
a  joke  and  a  smell.  There  is  the  whole  Yellow 
Book  team,  who  never  succeeded  in  convincing 
anybody.  The  economic  basis  of  authorship 
had  been  shaken  by  the  abolition  of  the  three- 
volume  novel.  The  intellectual  basis  had  been 
lulled  to  sleep  by  that  hotchpotch  of  conven- 
tion and  largeness  that  we  call  the  Victorian 
Era.  Literature  began  to  be  an  effort  to  ex- 
press the  inexpressible,  resulting  in  outraged 
grammar  and  many  dots.  .  .  . 

English  literature  at  the  end  of  the  last 
century  stood  in  sore  need  of  some  of  the 
elementary  virtues.  If  obviousness  and  sim- 
plicity are  liable  to  be  overdone,  they  are  not 
so  deadly  in  their  after-effects  as  the  bizarre 
and  the  extravagant.  The  literary  movement 
of  the  eighteen  nineties  was  like  a  strong 
stimulant  given  to  a  patient  dying  of  old  age. 
Its  results  were  energetic,  but  the  energy  was 
convulsive.  We  should  laugh  if  we  saw  a  man 
apparently  dancing  in  mid-air — until  we  noticed 

12 


INTRODUCTORY 

the  rope  about  his  neck.  It  is  impossible  to 
account  for  the  success  of  the  Yello^v^  Book 
school  and  its  congeners  save  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  rope  was,  generally  speaking, 
invisible. 

In  this  Year  of  Grace,  1915,  we  are  still  too 
close  to  the  eighteen  nineties,  still  too  liable 
to  be  influenced  by  their  ways,  to  be  able  to 
speak  for  posterity  and  to  pronounce  the  final 
judgment  upon  those  evil  years.  It  is  possible 
that  the  critics  of  the  twenty-first  century,  as 
they  turn  over  the  musty  pages  of  the  Yellow 
Book,  will  ejaculate  with  feeling :  "  Good  God, 
what  a  dull  time  these  people  must  have  had  !  " 
On  the  whole  it  is  probable  that  this  will  be 
their  verdict.  They  will  detect  the  dullness 
behind  the  mechanical  brilliancy  of  Oscar 
Wilde,  and  recognize  the  strange  hues  of  the 
whole  ^Esthetic  Movement  as  the  garments  of 
men  who  could  not,  or  would  not  see.  There 
is  really  no  rational  alternative  before  our 
critics  of  the  next  century  ;  if  the  men  of  the 
eighteen  nineties,  and  the  queer  things  they 
gave  us,  were  not  the  products  of  an  intense 
boredom,  if,  in  strict  point  of  fact,  Wilde, 
Beardsley,  Davidson,  Hankin,  Dowson,  and 
Lionel  Johnson  were  men  who  rollicked  in  the 
warm  sunshine  of  the  late  Victorian  period, 
then  the  suicide,  drunkenness  and  vice  with 

13 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

which  they  were  afflicted  is  surely  the  strangest 
phenomenon  in  the  history  of  human  nature. 
To  many  people,  those  years  actually  were 
dull. 

The  years  from  1885  to  1898  were  like  the  hours  of 
afternoon  in  a  rich  house  with  large  rooms  ;  the 
hours  before  teatime.  They  believed  in  nothing 
except  good  manners ;  and  the  essence  of  good 
manners  is  to  conceal  a  yawn.  A  yawn  may  be 
defined  as  a  silent  yell. 

So  says  Chesterton,  yawning  prodigiously. 

One  may  even  go  farther,  and  declare  that 
in  those  dark  days  a  yawn  was  the  true  sign 
of  intelligence.  It  is  no  mere  coincidence  that 
the  two  cleverest  literary  debutants  of  that 
last  decade,  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm  and  the  sub- 
ject of  this  essay,  both  stepped  on  the  stage 
making  a  pretty  exhibition  of  boredom.  When 
the  first  of  these  published,  in  1896,  being 
then  twenty-four  years  old,  his  Works  of  Max 
Beerbohm  he  murmured  in  the  preface,  "I 
shall  write  no  more.  Already  I  begin  to  feel 
myself  a  trifle  outmoded.  .  .  .  Younger  men, 
with  months  of  activity  before  them  .  .  .  have 
pressed  forward  .  .  .  Cedo  junioribus.^^ 

So  too,  when  Chesterton  produced  his  first 
book,  four  years  later,  he  called  it  Greybeards 
at  Play  :  Literature  and  Art  for  Old  Gentlemen, 
and  the  dedication  contained  this  verse  : 

14 


INTRODUCTORY 

Now  we  are  old  and  wise  and  grey, 

And  shaky  at  the  knees  ; 
Now  is  the  true  time  to  delight 

In  picture  books  like  these. 

The  joke  would  have  been  pointless  in  any 
other  age.  In  1900,  directed  against  the 
crapulous  exoticism  of  contemporary  litera- 
ture, it  was  an  antidote,  childhood  was  being 
used  as  a  medicine  against  an  assumed  attack 
of  second  childhood.  The  attack  began  with 
nonsense  rhymes  and  pictures.  It  was  a  com- 
plete success  from  the  very  first.  There  is  this 
important  difference  between  the  writer  of 
nonsense  verses  and  their  illustrator ;  the 
former  must  let  himself  go  as  much  as  he  can, 
the  latter  must  hold  himself  in.  In  Greybeards 
at  Play,  Chesterton  took  the  bit  between  his 
teeth,  and  bolted  faster  than  Edward  Lear  had 
ever  done.  The  antitheses  of  such  verses  as 
the  following  are  irresistible  : 

For  me,  as  Mr.  Wordsv/orth  says. 

The  duties  shine  like  stars  ; 
I  formed  my  uncle's  character. 

Decreasing  his  cigars. 

Or 

The  Shopmen,  when  their  souls  were  still, 

Declined  to  open  shops — 
And  cooks  recorded  frames  of  mind, 

In  sad  and  subtle  chops. 

The  drawings  which  accompanied  these  gems, 
it   may   be   added,    were   such   as   the   verses 

15 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

deserved.  They  exhibit  a  joyous  inconsistency, 
the  disproportion  which  is  the  essence  of 
parody  combined  with  the  accuracy  which  is 
the  sine  qua  non  of  satire. 

About  a  month  after  Chesterton  had  pro- 
duced his  statement  of  his  extreme  senihty 
(the  actual  words  of  the  affidavit  are 

I  am,  I  think  I  have  remarked,  [he  had  not]. 
Terrifically  old.) 

he  pubHshed  another  Httle  book,  The  Wild 
Knight  and  Other  Poems,  as  evidence  of  his 
youth.  For  some  years  past  he  had  occasion- 
ally written  more  or  less  topical  verses  which 
appeared  in  The  Outlook  and  the  defunct 
Speaker.  Greybeards  at  Play  was,  after  all, 
merely  an  elaborate  sneer  at  the  boredom  of 
a  decade  ;  the  second  book  was  a  more  definite 
attack  upon  some  points  of  its  creeds  and  an 
assertion  of  the  principles  which  mattered 
most. 

There  is  one  sin  :  to  call  a  green  leaf  grey. 
Whereat  the  sun  in  heaven  shuddereth. 

There  is  one  blasphemy  :  for  death  to  pray, 
For  God  alone  knoweth  the  praise  of  death. 

Or  again  {The  WorWs  Lover) 

I  stood  and  spoke  a  blasphemy — 

"  Behold  the  summer  leaves  are  green." 

It  was  a  defence  of  reality,  crying  for  ven- 
geance upon  the  realists.     The  word  realism 

16 


INTRODUCTORY 

had  come  to  be  the  trade-mark  of  Zola  and 
his  followers,  especially  of  Mr.  George  Moore, 
who  made  a  sacrifice  of  nine  obvious,  clean 
and  unsinkable  aspects  of  life  so  as  to  concen- 
trate upon  the  submersible  tenth.  Chesterton 
came  out  with  his  defence  of  the  common  man, 
of  the  streets 

Where  shift  in  strange  democracy 
The  milHon  masks  of  God, 

the  grass,  and  all  the  little  things  of  life, 
"  things  "  in  general,  for  our  subject,  alone 
among  modern  poets,  is  not  afraid  to  use  the 
word.    If  on  one  occasion  he  can  merely 

.  .  .  feel  vaguely  thankful  to  the  vast 
Stupidity  of  things, 

on  another  he  will  speak  of 

The  whole  divine  democracy  of  things, 

a  line  which  is  a  challenge  to  the  unbeliever, 
a  statement  of  a  political  creed  which  is  the 
outgrowth  of  a  religious  faith. 

The  same  year  Chesterton  formally  stepped 
into  the  ranks  of  journalism  and  joined  the 
staff  of  The  Daily  News.  He  had  scribbled 
poems  since  he  had  been  a  boy  at  St.  Paul's 
School.  In  the  years  following  he  had  watched 
other  people  working  at  the  Slade,  while  he 
had  gone  on  scribbling.  Then  he  had  begun 
to  do  little  odd  jobs  of  art  criticism  and 
B  17 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

reviewing  for  The  Bookman  and  put  in  occa- 
sional appearances  in  the  stateher  columns  of 
The  Speaker.  Then  came  the  Boer  War,  which 
made  G.  K.  Chesterton  lose  his  temper  but 
find  his  soul.  In  1900  The  Daily  News  passed 
into  new  hands — the  hands  of  G.K.C.'s  friends. 
And  until  1913,  when  the  causes  he  had  come 
to  uphold  were  just  diametrically  opposed  to 
the  causes  the  victorious  Liberal  Party  had 
adopted,  every  Saturday  morning's  issue  of 
that  paper  contained  an  article  by  him,  while 
often  enough  there  appeared  signed  reviews 
and  poems.  The  situation  was  absurd  enough. 
The  Daily  News  was  the  organ  of  Noncon- 
formists, and  G.K.C.  preached  orthodoxy  to 
them.  It  advocated  temperance,  and  G.K.C. 
advocated  beer.  At  first  this  was  sufficiently 
amusing,  and  nobody  minded  much.  But 
before  Chesterton  severed  his  connection  with 
the  paper,  its  readers  had  come  to  expect  a 
weekly  article  that  almost  invariably  con- 
tained an  attack  upon  one  of  their  pet  beliefs, 
and  often  enough  had  to  be  corrected  by  a 
leader  on  the  same  page.  But  the  Chesterton 
of  1900  was  a  spokesman  of  the  Liberalism  of 
his  day,  independent,  net  the  intractable 
monster  who  scoffed,  a  few  years  later,  at  all 
the  parties  in  the  State. 

At  this  point  one  is  reminded  of  Watts-Dun- 
18 


INTRODUCTORY 

ton's  definition  of  the  two  kinds  of  humour  in 
The  Renascence  of  Wonder :  "  While  in  the 
case  of  relative  humour  that  which  amuses  the 
humorist  is  the  incongruity  of  some  departure 
from  the  laws  of  convention,  in  the  case  of 
absolute  humour  it  is  the  incongruity  of  some 
departure  from  the  normal  as  fixed  by  nature 
herself."  We  have  our  doubts  as  to  the 
general  application  of  this  definition  :  but  it 
applies  so  well  to  Chesterton  that  it  might 
almost  have  come  off  his  study  walls.  What 
made  a  series  of  more  than  six  hundred  articles 
by  him  acceptable  to  The  Daily  News  was  just 
the  skilful  handling  of  "  the  laws  of  conven- 
tion," and  "  the  normal  as  fixed  by  nature 
herself."  On  the  theory  enunciated  by  Watts- 
Dunton,  everything  except  the  perfect  average 
is  absolutely  funny,  and  the  perfect  average, 
of  course,  is  generally  an  incommensurable 
quantity.  Chesterton  carefully  made  it  his 
business  to  present  the  eccentricity — I  use  the 
word  in  its  literal  sense — of  most  things,  and 
the  humour  followed  in  accordance  with  the 
above  definition.  The  method  was  simple. 
Chesterton  invented  some  grotesque  situation, 
some  hypothesis  which  was  glaringly  absurd. 
He  then  placed  it  in  an  abrupt  juxtaposition 
with  the  normal,  instead  of  working  from  the 
normal  to  the  actual,   in  the  usual  manner. 

19 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Just  as  the  reader  was  beginning  to  protest 
against  the  reversal  of  his  accustomed  values, 
G.K.C.  would  strip  the  grotesque  of  a  few 
inessentials,  and,  lo  !  a  parable.  A  few  strokes 
of  irony  and  wit,  an  epigram  or  two  infallibly 
placed  where  it  would  distract  attention  from 
a  weak  point  in  the  argument,  and  the  thing 
was  complete.  By  such  means  Chesterton 
developed  the  use  of  a  veritable  Excalibur  of 
controversy,  a  tool  of  great  might  in  political 
journalism.  These  methods,  pursued  a  few 
years  longer,  taught  him  a  craftsmanship  he 
could  employ  for  purely  romantic  ends.  How 
he  employed  it,  and  the  opinions  which  he 
sought  to  uphold  by  its  means  will  be  the 
subjects  of  the  following  chapters.  Chesterton 
sallied  forth  like  a  Crusader  against  the  politi- 
cal and  literary  Turks  who  had  unjustly  come 
into  possession  of  a  part  of  the  heritage  of  a 
Christian  people.  We  must  not  forget  that 
the  leading  characteristic  of  a  Crusader  is  his 
power  of  invigorating,  which  he  applies  im- 
partially to  virtues  and  to  vices.  There  is  a 
great  difference  between  a  Crusader  and  a 
Christian,  which  is  not  commonly  realized. 
The  latter  attempts  to  show  his  love  for  his 
enemy  by  abolishing  his  unchristianness,  the 
former  by  abolishing  him  altogether.  Although 
the  two   methods   are   apt  to   give   curiously 

20 


INTRODUCTORY 

similar  results,  the  distinction  between  a 
Crusader  and  a  Christian  is  radical  and  will  be 
considered  in  greater  detail  in  the  course  of 
this  study.  This  study  does  not  profess  to  be 
biographical,  and  only  the  essential  facts  of 
Chesterton's  life  need  be  given  here.  These 
are,  that  he  was  born  in  London  in  1873,  is  the 
son  of  a  West  London  estate  agent  who  is  also 
an  artist  and  a  children's  poet  in  a  small  but 
charming  way,  is  married  and  has  children. 
Perhaps  it  is  more  necessary  to  record  the  fact 
that  he  is  greatly  read  by  the  youth  of  his 
day,  that  he  comes  in  for  much  amused  toler- 
ance, that,  generally  speaking,  he  is  not  recog- 
nized as  a  great  or  courageous  thinker,  even 
by  those  people  who  understand  his  views 
well  enough  to  dissent  from  them  entirely,  and 
that  he  is  regarded  less  as  a  stylist,  than  as  the 
owner  of  a  trick  of  style.  These  are  the  false 
beliefs  that  I  seek  to  combat.  The  last  may 
be  disposed  of  summarily.  When  an  author's 
style  is  completely  sincere,  and  completely 
part  of  him,  it  has  this  characteristic  ;  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  imitate.  Nobody  has 
ever  successfully  parodied  Shakespeare,  for 
example  ;  there  are  not  even  any  good  paro- 
dies of  Mr.  Shaw.  And  Chesterton  remains 
unparodied  ;  even  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm's  effort 
in  A  Christmas  Garland  rings  false.     His  style 

21 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

is  individual.  He  has  not  "  played  the  sedulous 
ape." 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  proposed 
to  acquit  Chesterton  of  all  the  charges  brought 
against  him.  The  average  human  being  is 
partly  a  prig  and  partly  a  saint ;  and  some- 
times men  are  so  glad  to  get  rid  of  a  prig  that 
they  are  ready  to  call  him  a  saint — Simon 
Stylites,  for  example.  And  it  is  not  suggested 
that  the  author  of  the  remark,  "  There  are 
only  three  things  that  women  do  not  under- 
stand. They  are  Liberty,  Equality,  Frater- 
nity," is  not  a  prig,  for  a  demonstration  that 
he  is  a  complete  gentleman  would  obviously 
leave  other  matters  of  importance  incon- 
veniently crowded  out.  We  are  confronted 
with  a  figure  of  some  significance  in  these 
times.  He  represents  what  has  been  called 
in  other  spheres  than  his  "  the  anti-intellec- 
tualist  reaction."  We  must  answer  the  ques- 
tions ;  to  what  extent  does  he  represent  mere 
unqualified  reaction  ?  What  are  his  qualifi- 
cations as  a  craftsman  ?  What,  after  all,  has 
he  done  ? 

And  we  begin  with  his  romances. 


22 


THE    ROMANCER 

In  spite  of  Chesterton's  liberal  production  of 
books,  it  is  not  altogether  simple  to  classify 
them  into  "  periods,"  in  the  manner  beloved 
of  the  critic,  nor  even  to  sort  them  out  accord- 
ing to  subjects.  G.K.C.  can  (and  generally 
does)  inscribe  an  Essay  on  the  Nature  of 
Religion  into  his  novels,  together  with  other 
confusing  ingredients  to  such  an  extent  that 
most  readers  would  consider  it  pure  pedantry 
on  the  part  of  anybody  to  insist  that  a  Ches- 
tertonian  romance  need  differ  appreciably  from 
a  Chestertonian  essay,  poem,  or  criticism.  That 
a  book  by  G.K.C.  should  describe  itself  as  a 
novel  means  little  more  than  that  its  original 
purchasing  price  was  four  shillings  and  six- 
pence. It  might  also  contain  passages  of  love, 
hate,  and  other  human  emotions,  but  then  again, 
it  might  not.  But  one  thing  it  would  contain, 
and  that  is  war.  G.K.C.  would  be  pugnacious, 
even  when  there  was  nothing  to  fight.  His 
characters  would  wage  their  wars,  even  when 

23 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

the  bone  of  contention  mattered  as  little  as 
the  handle  of  an  old  toothbrush.  That,  we 
should  say,  is  the  first  factor  in  the  formula 
of  the  Chestertonian  romance — and  all  the  rest 
are  the  inventor's  secret.  Imprimis,  a  body 
of  men  and  an  idea,  and  the  rest  must  follow, 
if  only  the  idea  be  big  enough  for  a  man  to 
fight  about,  or  if  need  be,  even  to  make  him- 
self ridiculous  about. 

In  The  Napoleon  of  Notting  Hill  we  have  this 
view  of  romance  stated  in  a  manner  entirely 
typical  of  its  author.  King  Auberon  and  the 
Provost  of  Notting  Hill,  Adam  Wayne,  are 
speaking.    The  latter  says  : 

".  I  know  of  a  magic  wand,  but  it  is  a  wand  that 
only  one  or  two  may  rightly  use,  and  only  seldom. 
It  is  a  fairy  wand  of  great  fear,  stronger  than  those 
who  use  it — often  frightful,  often  wicked  to  use.  But 
whatever  is  touched  with  it  is  never  again  wholly 
common  ;  whatever  is  touched  with  it  takes  a  magic 
from  outside  the  world.  If  I  touch,  with  this  fairy 
wand,  the  railways  and  the  roads  of  Notting  Hill, 
men  will  love  them,  and  be  afraid  of  them  for  ever." 

"  What  the  devil  are  you  talking  about  ?  "  asked 
the  King. 

"  It  has  made  mean  landscapes  magnificent,  and 
hovels  outlast  cathedrals,"  went  on  the  madman. 
"  Why  should  it  not  make  lamp-posts  fairer  than 
Greek  lamps,  and  an  omnibus-ride  like  a  painted 
ship  ?  The  touch  of  it  is  the  finger  of  a  strange 
perfection." 

24 


THE    ROMANCER 

"  What  is  your  wand  ? "  cried  the  King,  im- 
patiently. 

"  There  it  is,"  said  Wayne  ;  and  pointed  to  the 
floor,  where  his  sword  lay  flat  and  shining. 

If  all  the  dragons  of  old  romance  were  loosed 
upon  the  fiction  of  our  day,  the  result,  one 
would  imagine,  would  be  something  like  that 
of  a  Chestertonian  novel.  But  the  dragons 
are  dead  and  converted  into  poor  fossil  ich- 
thyosauruses,  incapable  of  biting  the  timidest 
damsel  or  the  most  corpulent  knight  that  ever 
came  out  of  the  Stock  Exchange.  That  is  the 
tragedy  of  G.K.C.'s  ideas,  but  it  is  also  his 
opportunity.  "  Man  is  a  creature  who  lives 
not  upon  bread  alone,  but  principally  by 
catch- words,"  says  Stevenson.  "  Give  me  my 
dragons,"  says  G.K.C.  in  effect,  "  and  I  will 
give  you  your  catch- words.  You  may  have 
them  in  any  one  of  a  hundred  different  ways. 
I  will  drop  them  on  you  when  you  least  expect 
them,  and  their  disguises  will  outrange  all 
those  known  to  Scotland  Yard  and  to  Drury 
Lane  combined.  You  may  have  catastrophes 
and  comets  and  camels,  if  you  will,  but  you 
will  certainly  have  your  catch- words." 

The  first  of  Chesterton's  novels,  in  order  of 
their  publication,  is  The  Napoleon  of  Notting 
Hill  (1904).  This  is  extravagance  itself; 
fiction  in  the  sense  only  that  the  events  never 

25 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

happened  and  never  could  have  happened. 
The  scene  is  placed  in  London,  the  time,  about 
A.D.  1984.  "  This  'ere  progress,  it  keeps  on 
goin'  on,"  somebody  remarks  in  one  of  the 
novels  of  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells.  But  it  never  goes 
on  as  the  prophets  said  it  would,  and  conse- 
quently England  in  those  days  does  not  greatly 
differ  from  the  England  of  to-day.  There  have 
been  changes,  of  course.  Kings  are  now  chosen 
in  alphabetical  rotation,  and  the  choice  falls 
upon  a  civil  servant,  Auberon  Quin  by  name. 
Now  Quin  has  a  sense  of  humour,  of  absolute 
humour,  as  the  Watts-Dunton  definition  already 
cited  would  have  it  called.  He  has  two  bosom 
friends  who  are  also  civil  servants  and  whose 
humour  is  of  the  official  variety,  and  whose 
outlook  upon  life  is  that  of  a  Times  leader. 
Quin's  first  official  act  is  the  publication  of  a 
proclamation  ordering  every  London  borough 
to  build  itself  city  walls,  with  gates  to  be  closed 
at  sunset,  and  to  become  possessed  of  Provosts 
in  mediaeval  attire,  with  guards  of  halberdiers. 
From  his  throne  he  attends  to  some  of  the 
picturesque  details  of  the  scheme,  and  enjoys 
the  joke  in  silence.  But  after  a  few  years  of 
this  a  young  man  named  Adam  Wayne  be- 
comes Provost  of  Notting  Hill,  and  to  him  his 
borough,  and  more  especially  the  little  street 
in  which  he  has  spent  his  life,  arc  things  of 

26 


THE   ROMANCER 

immense  importance.  Rather  than  allow  that 
street  to  make  way  for  a  new  thoroughfare, 
Wayne  rallies  his  halberdiers  to  the  defence 
of  their  borough.  The  Provosts  of  North 
Kensington  and  South  Kensington,  of  West 
Kensington  and  Bayswater,  rally  their  guards 
too,  and  attack  Notting  Hill,  purposing  to 
clear  Wayne  out  of  the  way  and  to  break  down 
the  offending  street.  Wayne  is  surrounded  at 
night  but  converts  defeat  into  victory  by 
seizing  the  offices  of  a  Gas  Company  and  turn- 
ing off  the  street  lights.  The  next  day  he  is 
besieged  in  his  own  street.  By  a  sudden  sortie 
he  and  his  army  escape  to  Campden  Hill. 
Here  a  great  battle  rages  for  many  hours,  while 
one  of  the  opposing  Provosts  gathers  a  large 
army  for  a  final  attack.  At  last  Wayne  and 
the  remnants  of  his  men  are  hopelessly  out- 
numbered, but  once  more  he  turns  defeat  into 
victory.  He  threatens,  unless  the  opposing 
forces  instantly  surrender,  to  open  the  great 
reservoir  and  flood  the  whole  of  Notting  Hill. 
The  allied  generals  surrender,  and  the  Empire 
of  Notting  Hill  comes  into  being.  Twenty 
years  later  the  spirit  of  Adam  Wayne  has  gone 
beyond  his  own  city  walls.  London  is  a  wild 
romance,  a  mass  of  cities  filled  with  citizens 
of  great  pride.  But  the  Empire,  which  has 
been  the  Nazareth  of  the  new  idea,  has  waxed 

27 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

fat  and  kicked.  In  righteous  anger  the  other 
boroughs  attack  it,  and  win,  because  their 
cause  is  just.  King  Auberon,  a  recruit  in 
Wayne's  army,  falls  with  his  leader  in  the 
great  battle  of  Kensington  Gardens.  But  they 
recover  in  the  morning. 

"  It  was  all  a  joke,"  says  the  King  in  apology. 
"  No,"  says  Wayne;  "  we  are  two  lobes  of  the  same 
brain  .  .  .  you,  the  humorist  ...  I,  the  fanatic. 
.  .  .  You  have  a  halberd  and  I  have  a  sword,  let  us 
start  our  wanderings  over  the  world.  For  we  are  its 
two  essentials." 

So  ends  the  story. 

Consider  the  preposterous  elements  of  the 
book.  A  London  with  blue  horse-'buses. 
Bloodthirsty  battles  chiefly  fought  with  hal- 
berds. A  King  who  acts  as  a  war  correspon- 
dent and  parodies  G.  W.  Stevens.  It  is  pre- 
posterous because  it  is  romantic  and  we  are 
not  used  to  romance.  But  to  Chaucer  let  us 
say  it  would  have  appeared  preposterous 
because  he  could  not  have  realized  the  initial 
premises.  Before  such  a  book  the  average 
reader  is  helpless.  His  scale  of  values  is 
knocked  out  of  working  order  by  the  very  first 
page,  almost  by  the  very  first  sentence. 
("  The  human  race,  to  which  so  many  of  my 
readers  belong,  has  been  playing  at  children's 
games  from  the  beginning,  and  will  probably 

28 


THE    ROMANCER 

do  it  till  the  end,  which  is  a  nuisance  for  the 
few  people  who  grow  up.")  The  absence  of  a 
love  affair  will  deprive  him  of  the  only  "  human 
interest  "  he  can  be  really  sure  of.  The  Ches- 
tertonian  idiom,  above  all,  will  soon  lead  him 
to  expect  nothing,  because  he  can  never  get 
any  idea  of  what  he  is  to  receive,  and  will 
bring  him  to  a  proper  submissiveness.  The 
later  stages  are  simple.  The  reader  will  wonder 
why  it  never  before  occurred  to  him  that  area- 
railings  are  very  like  spears,  and  that  a  distant 
tramcar  may  at  night  distinctly  resemble  a 
dragon.  He  may  travel  far,  once  his  imagina- 
tion has  been  started  on  these  lines.  When 
romantic  possibilities  have  once  shed  a  glow 
on  the  offices  of  the  Gas  Light  and  Coke  Com- 
pany and  on  the  erections  of  the  Metropolitan 
Water  Board,  the  rest  of  life  may  well  seem 
filled  with  wonder  and  wild  desires. 

Chesterton  may  be  held  to  have  invented  a 
new  species  of  detective  story — the  sort  that 
has  no  crime,  no  criminal,  and  a  detective 
whose  processes  are  transcendental.  The  Club 
of  Queer  Trades  is  the  first  batch  of  such  stories. 
The  Man  who  was  Thursday  is  another  specimen 
of  some  length.  More  recently,  Chesterton  has 
repeated  the  type  in  some  of  the  Father  Brown 
stories.  In  The  Club  of  Queer  Trades,  the  trans- 
cendental detective  is  Basil  Grant,  to  describe 

29 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

whom  with  accuracy  is  difficult,  because  of 
his  author's  inconsistencies.  Basil  Grant,  for 
instance,  is  "  a  man  who  scarcely  stirred  out 
of  his  attic,"  yet  it  would  appear  elsewhere 
that  he  walked  abroad  often  enough.  The 
essentials  of  this  unprecedented  detective  are, 
however,  sufficiently  tangible.  He  had  been  a 
K.C.  and  a  judge.  He  had  left  the  Bench 
because  it  annoyed  him,  and  because  he  held 
the  very  human  but  not  legitimate  belief  that 
some  criminals  would  be  better  off  with  a  trip 
to  the  seaside  than  with  a  sentence  of  imprison- 
ment. After  his  retirement  from  public  life 
he  stuck  to  his  old  trade  as  the  judge  of  a 
Voluntary  Criminal  Court.  "  My  criminals 
were  tried  for  the  faults  which  really  make 
social  life  impossible.  They  were  tried  before 
me  for  selfishness,  or  for  an  impossible  vanity, 
or  for  scandal-mongering,  or  for  stinginess  to 
guests  or  dependents."  It  is  regrettable  that 
Chesterton  does  not  grant  us  a  glimpse  of  this 
fascinating  tribunal  at  work.  However,  it  is 
Grant's  job,  on  the  strength  of  which  he  becomes 
the  president  and  founder  of  the  C.Q.T. — Club 
of  Queer  Trades.  Among  the  members  of  this 
Club  are  a  gentleman  who  runs  an  Adventure 
and  Romance  Agency  for  supplying  thrills  to 
the  bourgeois,  two  Professional  Detainers,  and 
an  Agent  for  Arboreal  Villas,  who  lets  off  a 

30 


THE    ROMANCER 

variety  of  birds'  nest.  The  way  in  which  these 
people  go  about  their  curious  tasks  invariably 
suggests  a  crime  to  Rupert  Grant,  Basil's 
amateur  detective  brother,  whereupon  Basil 
has  to  intervene  to  put  matters  right.  The 
author  does  not  appear  to  have  been  struck 
by  the  inconsistency  of  setting  Basil  to  work 
to  ferret  out  the  doings  of  his  fellow  club- 
members.  The  book  is,  in  fact,  full  of  joyous 
inconsistencies.  The  Agent  for  Arboreal  Villas 
is  clearly  unqualified  for  the  membership  of 
the  Club.  Professor  Chadd  has  no  business 
there  either.  He  is  elected  on  the  strength  of 
having  invented  a  language  expressed  by 
dancing,  but  it  appears  that  he  is  really  an 
employee  in  the  Asiatic  MSS.  Department 
of  the  British  Museum.  Things  are  extremely 
absurd  in  The  Eccentric  Seclusion  of  the  Old, 
Lady.  At  the  instigation  of  Rupert,  who  has 
heard  sighs  of  pain  coming  out  of  a  South 
Kensington  basement,  Basil,  Rupert,  and  the 
man  who  tells  the  story,  break  into  the  house 
and  violently  assault  those  whom  they  meet. 

Basil  sprang  up  with  dancing  eyes,  and  with  three 
blows  like  battering-rams  knocked  the  footman  into 
a  cocked  hat.  Then  he  sprang  on  top  of  Burrows, 
with  one  antimacassar  in  his  hand  and  another  in  his 
teeth,  and  bound  him  hand  and  foot  almost  before  he 
knew  clearly  that  his  head  had  struck  the  floor.  Then 
Basil  sprang  at  Greenwood  .  .  .  etc.  etc. 

31 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

There  is  a  good  deal  more  like  this.  Having 
taken  the  citadel  and  captured  the  defenders 
(as  Caesar  might  say),  Basil  and  company  reach 
the  sighing  lady  of  the  basement.  But  she 
refuses  to  be  released.  Whereupon  Basil 
explains  his  own  queer  trade,  and  that  the 
lady  is  voluntarily  undergoing  a  sentence  for 
backbiting.  No  explanation  is  vouchsafed  of 
the  strange  behaviour  of  Basil  Grant  in  attack- 
ing men  who,  as  he  knew,  were  doing  nothing 
they  should  not.  Presumably  it  was  due  to 
a  Chestertonian  theory  that  there  should  be 
at  least  one  good  physical  fight  in  each  book. 

It  will  be  seen  that  The  Club  of  Queer  Trades 
tends  to  curl  up  somewhat  (quite  literally,  in 
the  sense  that  the  end  comes  almost  where  the 
beginning  ought  to  be)  when  it  receives  heavy 
and  serious  treatment.  I  should  therefore 
explain  that  this  serious  treatment  has  been 
given  under  protest,  and  that  its  primary 
intention  has  been  to  deal  with  those  well- 
meaning  critics  who  believe  that  Chesterton 
can  write  fiction,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word.  His  own  excellent  definition  of  ficti- 
tious narrative  (in  The  Victorian  Age  in  Litera- 
ture) is  that  essentially  "  the  story  is  told  .  .  . 
for  the  sake  of  some  s1;udy  of  the  difference 
between  human  beings."  This  alone  is  enough 
to   exculpate   him   of  the   charge   of  writing 

32 


THE    ROMANCER 

novels.  The  Chestertonian  short  story  is  also 
in  its  way  unique.  If  we  applied  the  methods 
of  the  Higher  Criticism  to  the  story  just 
described,  we  might  base  all  manner  of  odd 
theories  upon  the  defeat  {inter  alios)  of 
Burrows,  a  big  and  burly  youth,  by  Basil 
Grant,  aged  sixty  at  the  very  least,  and  armed 
with  antimacassars.  But  there  is  no  necessity. 
If  Chesterton  invents  a  fantastic  world,  full  of 
fantastic  people  who  speak  Chestertonese, 
then  he  is  quite  entitled  to  waive  any  trifling 
conventions  which  hinder  the  liberty  of  his 
subjects.  As  already  pointed  out,  such  is  his 
humour.  The  only  disadvantage,  as  some- 
body once  complained  of  the  Arabian  Nights, 
is  that  one  is  apt  to  lose  one's  interest  in  a 
hero  who  is  liable  at  any  moment  to  turn  into 
a  camel.  None  of  Chesterton's  heroes  do,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  become  camels,  but  I  would 
nevertheless  strongly  advise  any  young  woman 
about  to  marry  one  of  them  to  take  out  an 
insurance  policy  against  unforeseen  trans- 
formations. 

Although  it  appears  that  a  few  reviewers 
went  to  the  length  of  reading  the  whole  of 
The  Man  who  was  Thursday  (1908),  it  is  obvious 
by  their  subsequent  guesswork  that  they  did 
not  notice  the  second  part  of  the  title,  which 
is,  very  simply,  A  Nightmare.  The  story  takes 
c  33 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

its  name  from  the  Supreme  Council  of  Anar- 
chists, which  has  seven  members,  named  after 
the  days  of  the  week.  Sunday  is  the  Chairman. 
The  others,  one  after  the  other,  turn  out  to  be 
detectives.  Syme,  the  nearest  approach  to  the 
what  might  be  called  the  hero,  is  a  poet  whom 
mysterious  hands  thrust  into  an  Anarchists' 
meeting,  at  which  he  is  elected  to  fill  the 
vacancy  caused  by  the  death  of  last  Thursday. 
A  little  earlier  other  mysterious  hands  had 
taken  him  into  a  dark  room  in  Scotland  Yard 
where  the  voice  of  an  unseen  man  had  told  him 
that  henceforth  he  was  a  member  of  the  anti- 
anarchist  corps,  a  new  body  which  was  to 
deal  with  the  new  anarchists — not  the  com- 
paratively harmless  people  who  threw  bombs, 
but  the  intellectual  anarchist.  "  We  say  that 
the  most  dangerous  criminal  now  is  the  en- 
tirely lawless  modern  philosopher,"  somebody 
explains  to  him.  The  bewildered  Syme  walks 
straight  into  further  bewilderments,  as,  one 
after  the  other,  the  week-days  of  the  committee 
are  revealed.  But  who  is  Sunday  ?  Chesterton 
makes  no  reply.  It  was  he  who  in  a  darkened 
room  of  Scotland  Yard  had  enrolled  the 
detectives.  He  is  the  Nightmare  of  the  story. 
The  first  few  chapters  are  perfectly  straight- 
forward, and  lifelike  to  the  extent  of  describing 
personal    details    in    a    somewhat    exceptional 

34 


THE    ROMANCER 

manner  for  Chesterton.  But,  gradually,  wilder 
and  wilder  things  begin  to  happen — until,  at 
last,  Syme  wakes  up. 

The  trouble  about  The  Man  who  was  Thurs- 
day is  not  its  incomprehensibility,  but  its 
author's  gradual  decline  of  interest  in  the 
book  as  it  lengthened  out.  It  begins  excel- 
lently. There  is  real  humour  and  a  good  deal 
of  it  in  the  earlier  stages  of  Syme.  And  there 
are  passages  like  this  one  on  the  "  lawless 
modern  philosopher"  : 

Compared  to  him,  burglars  and  bigamists  are 
essentially  moral  men  ;  my  heart  goes  out  to  them. 
.  .  .  Thieves  respect  property.  They  merely  wish 
the  property  to  become  their  property  that  they  may 
more  perfectly  respect  it.  But  philosophers  dislike 
property  as  property  ;  they  wish  to  destroy  the  very 
idea  of  personal  possession.  Bigamists  respect 
marriage,  or  they  would  not  go  through  the  highly 
ceremonial  and  even  ritualistic  formality  of  bigamy. 
But  philosophers  despise  marriage  as  marriage. 

But  his  amiable  flow  of  paradox  soon  runs  out. 
The  end  of  the  book  is  just  a  wild  whirl,  a 
nightmare  with  a  touch  of  the  cinematograph. 
People  chase  one  another,  in  one  instance  they 
quite  literally  chase  themselves.  And  the  end- 
ing has  all  the  effect  of  a  damaged  film  that 
cannot  be  stopped,  on  the  large  blank  spaces 
of  which  some  idiot  has  been  drawing  absurd 

35 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

pictures  which  appear  on  the  screen,  to  the 
confusion_of  the  story.     One  remembers  the 

rnense  and  dominating  figure  of  Sunday, 
only  because  the  description  of  him  reads  very 
much  hke  a  description  of  Chesterton  himself. 
But  if  the  person  is  recognizable,  the  person- 
ality remains  deliberately  incomprehensible. 
He  is  just  an  outline  in  space,  who  rode  down 
Albany  Street  on  an  elephant  abducted  from 
the  Zoological  Gardens,  and  who  spoke  sadly 
to  his  guests  when  they  had  run  their  last  race 
against  him. 

Until  recent  years  the  word  mysticism  was 
sufficiently  true  to  its  derivation  to  imply 
mystery,  the  relation  of  God  to  man.  But 
since  the  cheaper  sort  of  journalist  seized  hold 
of  the  unhappy  word,  its  demoralization  has 
been  complete.  It  now  indicates,  generally 
speaking,  an  intellectual  defect  which  ex- 
presses itself  in  a  literary  quality  one  can  only 
call  woolliness.  There  is  a  genuine  mysticism, 
expressed  in  Blake's  lines  : 

To  see  the  world  in  a  grain  of  sand 
And  a  Heaven  in  a  wild  flower. 

Hold  Infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand 
And  Eternity  in  an  hour. 

And  there  is  a  spurious  mysticism,  meaning- 
less rubbish  of  which  Rossetti's  Sister  Helen 

36 


THE    ROMANCER 

is  a  specimen.  What  could  be  more  idiotic 
than  the  verse  : 

"  He  has  made  a  sign  and  called  Halloo  ! 
Sister  Helen, 

And  he  says  that  he  would  speak  with  you." 

"  Oh  tell  liim  I  fear  the  frozen  dew. 
Little  brother." 
(0  Mother,  Mary  Mother, 
Why  laughs  she  thus  between  Hell  and  Heaven  ?) 

The  trouble  about  the  latter  variety  is  its 
extreme  simplicity.  Anybody  with  the  gift  of 
being  able  to  make  lines  scan  and  rhyme  can 
produce  similar  effects  in  a  similar  way.  Hence 
the  enormous  temptation  exercised  by  this 
form  of  mysticism  gone  wrong.  There  is  a 
naughty  little  story  of  a  little  girl,  relating  to 
her  mother  the  mishaps  of  the  family  coal 
merchant,  as  seen  from  the  dining-room  win- 
dow. He  slipped  on  a  piece  of  orange-peel, 
the  child  had  explained.  "  And  what  happened 
then  ?  "  "  Why,  mummy,  he  sat  down  on  the 
pavement  and  talked  about  God."  Chesterton 
(and  he  is  not  alone  in  this  respect)  behaves 
exactly  like  this  coal-heaver.  When  he  is  at 
a  loss,  he  talks  about  God.  In  each  case  one 
is  given  to  suspect  that  the  invocation  is  due 
to  a  temporarily  overworked  imagination. 

This  leads  us  to  The  Ball  and  the  Cross  (1906). 
In   The   Man   who   was   Thursday,   when   the 

37 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

author  had  tired  of  his  story,  he  brought  in 
the  universe  at  large.  But  its  successor  is 
dominated  by  God,  and  discussions  on  him  by 
beings  celestial,  terrestrial,  and  merely  infernal. 
And  yet  The  Ball  and  the  Cross  is  in  many 
respects  Chesterton's  greatest  novel.  The  first 
few  chapters  are  things  of  joy.  There  is  much 
said  in  them  about  religion,  but  it  is  all  sincere 
and  bracing.  The  first  chapter  consists,  in 
the  main,  of  a  dialogue  on  religion,  between 
Professor  Lucifer,  the  inventor  and  the  driver 
of  an  eccentric  airship,  and  Father  Michael,  a 
theologian  acquired  by  the  Professor  in  Western 
Bulgaria.  As  the  airship  dives  into  the  ball 
and  the  cross  of  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral,  its 
passengers  naturally  find  themselves  taking  a 
deep  interest  in  the  cross,  considered  as  symbol 
and  anchor.  Lucifer  plumps  for  the  ball,  the 
symbol  of  all  that  is  rational  and  united.  The 
cross 

"  is  the  conflict  of  two  hostile  lines,  of  irreconcilable 
direction.  .  .  .  The  very  shape  of  it  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms."  Michael  replies,  "  But  we  like  contra- 
dictions in  terms.  Man  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  ; 
he  is  a  beast  whose  superiority  to  other  beasts  consists 
in  having  fallen." 

Defeated  on  points,  Lucifer  leaves  the  Father 
clinging  literally  to  the  cross  and  flies  away. 
Michael  meets  a  policeman  on  the  upper  gallery 

38 


THE    ROMANCER 

and    is    conducted    downwards.      The    scene 
changes  to  Ludgate  Circus,  but  Michael  is  no 
longer  in  the  centre  of  it.    A  Scot  named  Turn- 
bull   keeps    a   shop   here,    apparently    in   the 
endeavour  to  counterbalance  the  influence  of 
St.  Paul's  across  the  way.     He  is  an  atheist, 
selling   atheist   literature,    editing   an   atheist 
paper.      Another    Scot    arrives,    young    Evan 
Maclan,  straight  from  the  Highlands.     Unlike 
the  habitual  Londoner,  Maclan  takes  the  little 
shop  seriously.     In  its  window  he  sees  a  copy 
of  The  Atheist,  the  leading  article  of  which 
contains  an  insult  to  the  Virgin  Mary.    Maclan 
thereupon  puts  his  stick  through  the  window, 
Turnbull  comes   out,   there   is   a  scuffle,   and 
both  are  arrested  and  taken  before  a  Dicken- 
sian  magistrate.     The  sketch  of  Mr.  Cumber- 
land Vane  is  very  pleasing  :   it  is  clear  that  the 
author    knew    what    he    was    copying.      Lord 
Melbourne  is  alleged  to  have  said,  "  No  one 
has   more   respect   for   the   Christian   religion 
than  I  have  ;   but  really,  when  it  comes  to  in- 
truding it  into  private  life  ..."     Mr.  Vane 
felt    much    the    same    way    when    he    heard 
Maclan's    simple    explanation :     "  He    is    my 
enemy.     He  is  the  enemy  of  God."     He  said, 
"  It  is  most  undesirable  that  things  of  that 
sort   should   be   spoken   about — a — in   public, 
and  in  an  ordinary  Court  of  Justice.    Religion 

39 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

is — a — too  personal  a  matter  to  be  mentioned 
in  such  a  place."  However,  Maclan  is  fined. 
After  which  he  and  TurnbuU,  as  men  of  honour, 
buy  themselves  swords  and  proceed  to  fight 
the  matter  out.  With  interruptions  due  to 
argument  and  the  police,  the  fight  lasts  several 
weeks.  Turnbull  and  Maclan  fight  in  the  back 
garden  of  the  man  from  whom  they  bought 
the  swords,!  until  the  poUce  intervene.  They 
escape  the  police  and  gain  the  Northern 
Heights  of  London,  and  fight  once  more,  with 
a  madness  renewed  and  stimulated  by  the 
peace-making  efforts  of  a  stray  and  silly 
Tolstoy  an.  Then  the  police  come  again,  and 
are  once  more  outdistanced.  This  time  mortal 
combat  is  postponed  on  account  of  the  san- 
guinolence  of  a  casual  lunatic  who  worshipped 
blood  to  such  a  nauseating  extent  that  the 
dueUists  deferred  operations  in  order  to  chase 
him  into  a  pond.  Then  follows  an  intermin- 
able dialogue,  paradoxical,  thoroughly  Shavian, 
while  the  only  two  men  in  England  to  whom 
God  literally  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death  find 
that  they  begin  to  regard  the  slaughter  of  one 
by  the  other  as  an  unpleasant  duty.     Again 

1  Chesterton  jeers  at  this  man's  "  Scottish  "  ancestry  because  his 
surname  was  Gordon  and  he  was  obviously  a  Jew.  The  author  is 
probably  unaware  that  there  are  large  numbers  of  Jews  bearing 
that  name  in  Russia.  If  he  had  made  his  Jew  call  himself 
Macpherson,  the  case  would  have  been  different. 

40 


THE    ROMANCER 

they  fight  and  are  separated.  They  are  motored 
by  a  lady  to  the  Hampshh'e  coast,  and  there 
they  fight  on  the  sands  until  the  rising  tide 
cuts  them  off.  An  empty  boat  turns  up  to 
rescue  them  from  drowning  ;  in  it  they  reach 
one  of  the  Channel  Islands.  Again  they  fight, 
and  again  the  police  come.  They  escape  from 
them,  but  remain  on  the  island  in  disguise, 
and  make  themselves  an  opportunity  to  pick 
a  quarrel  and  so  fight  a  duel  upon  a  matter 
in  keeping  with  local  prejudice.  But  Turn- 
bull  has  fallen  in  love.  His  irritatingly 
calm  and  beautiful  devotee  argues  with  him 
on  religion  until  he  is  driven  to  cast  off  his 
disguise.  Then  the  police  are  on  his  tracks 
again.  A  lunatic  lends  Turnbull  and  Maclan 
his  yacht  and  so  the  chase  continues.  But  by 
this  time  Chesterton  is  getting  just  a  trifle 
bored.  He  realizes  that  no  matter  how  many 
adventures  his  heroes  get  into,  or  how  many 
paradoxes  they  fling  down  each  other's  throats, 
the  end  of  the  story,  the  final  inevitable  end 
which  alone  makes  a  series  of  rapid  adventures 
worth  while,  is  not  even  on  the  horizon.  An 
element  of  that  spurious  mysticism  already 
described  invades  the  book.  It  begins  to  be 
clear  that  Chesterton  is  trying  to  drag  in  a 
moral  somehow,  if  need  be,  by  the  hair  of  its 
head.     The  two  yacht ers  spend  two  weeks  of 

41 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

geographical  perplexity  and  come  to  a  desert 
island.  They  land,  but  think  it  wiser,  on  the 
whole,  to  postpone  fighting  until  they  have 
finished  the  champagne  and  cigars  with  which 
their  vessel  is  liberally  stored.  This  takes  a 
week.  Just  as  they  are  about  to  begin  the 
definitive  duel  they  discover  that  they  are  not 
upon  a  desert  island  at  all,  they  are  near 
Margate.  And  the  police  are  there,  too.  So 
once  more  they  are  chased.  They  land  in  a 
large  garden  in  front  of  an  old  gentleman  who 
assures  them  that  he  is  God.  He  turns  out  to 
be  a  lunatic,  and  the  place  an  asylum.  There 
follows  a  characteristic  piece  of  that  abuse  of 
science  for  which  Chesterton  has  never  at- 
tempted to  suggest  a  substitute.  Maclan  and 
Turnbull  find  themselves  prisoners,  unable  to 
get  out.  Then  they  dream  dreams.  Each  sees 
himself  in  an  aeroplane  flying  over  Fleet  Street 
and  Ludgate  Hill,  where  a  battle  is  raging. 
But  the  woolly  element  is  very  pronounced  by 
this  time,  and  we  can  make  neither  head  nor 
tail  of  these  dreams  and  the  conversations 
which  accompany  them.  The  duellists  are 
imprisoned  for  a  month  in  horrible  cells.  They 
find  their  way  into  the  garden,  and  are  told 
that  all  England  is  now  in  the  hands  of  the 
alienists,  by  a  new  Act  of  Parliament  :  this 
has  been  the  only  possible  manner  of  putting 

42 


THE    ROMANCER 

a  stop  to  the  revolution  started  by  Maclan 
and  Turnbull.  These  two  find  all  the  persons 
they  had  met  with  during  their  odyssey, 
packed  away  in  the  asylum,  which  is  a  won- 
derful place  worked  by  petroleum  machinery. 
But  the  matter-of-fact  grocer  from  the  Channel 
Island,  regarding  the  whole  affair  as  an  in- 
fringement of  the  Rights  of  Man,  sets  the 
petroleum  alight.  Michael,  the  celestial  being 
who  had  appeared  in  the  first  chapter  and 
disappeared  at  the  end  of  it,  is  dragged  out 
of  a  cell  in  an  imbecile  condition.  Lucifer 
comes  down  in  his  airship  to  collect  the  doctors, 
whose  bodies  he  drops  out,  a  little  later  on. 
The  buildings  vanish  in  the  flames,  the  keepers 
bolt,  the  inmates  talk  about  their  souls. 
Maclan  is  reunited  to  the  lady  of  the  Channel 
Island,  and  the  story  ends. 

When  a  stone  has  been  tossed  into  a  pond, 
the  ripples  gradually  and  symmetrically  grow 
smaller,  A  Chesterton  novel  is  like  an  adven- 
turous voyage  of  discovery,  which  begins  on 
smooth  water  and  is  made  with  the  object  of 
finding  the  causes  of  the  ripples.  As  ripple 
succeeds  ripple — or  chapter  follows  chapter — 
so  we  have  to  keep  a  tighter  hold  on  such 
tangible  things  as  are  within  our  reach.  Finally 
we  reach  the  centre  of  the  excitement  and  are 
either  sucked  into  a  whirlpool,  or  hit  on  the 

43 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

head  with  a  stone.  When  we  recover  conscious- 
ness we  feebly  remember  we  have  had  a  thrill- 
ing journey  and  that  we  had  started  out  with 
a  misapprehension  of  the  quality  of  Chester- 
tonian  fiction.  A  man  whose  memory  is 
normal  should  be  able  to  give  an  accurate 
synopsis  of  a  novel  six  months  after  he  has 
read  it.  But  I  should  be  greatly  surprised  if 
any  reader  of  The  Ball  and  the  Cross  could  tell 
exactly  what  it  was  all  about,  within  a  month 
or  two  of  reading  it.  The  discontinuity  of  it 
makes  one  difficulty ;  the  substitution  of 
paradox  for  incident  makes  another.  Yet  it 
is  difficult  to  avoid  the  conviction  that  this 
novel  will  survive  its  day  and  the  generation 
that  begot  it.  If  it  was  Chesterton's  endeavour 
(as  one  is  bound  to  suspect)  to  show  that  the 
triumph  of  atheism  would  lead  to  the  triumph 
of  a  callous  and  inhuman  body  of  scientists, 
then  he  has  failed  miserably.  But  if  he  was 
attempting  to  prove  that  the  uncertainties  of 
religion  were  trivial  things  when  compared 
with  the  uncertainties  of  atheism,  then  the 
verdict  must  be  reversed.  The  dialogues  on 
religion  contained  in  The  Ball  and  the  Cross 
are  alone  enough  and  more  than  enough  to 
place  it  among  the  few  books  on  religion  which 
could  be  safely  placed  in  the  hands  of  an 
atheist  or  an  agnostic  with  an  intelligence. 

44 


THE    ROMANCER 

If  we  consider  Manalive  (1912)  now  we  shall 
be  departing  from  strict  chronological  order, 
as  it  was  preceded  by  The  Innocence  of  Father 
Brown.  It  will,  however,  be  more  satisfactory 
to  take  the  two  Father  Brown  books  together. 
In  the  first  of  these  and  Manalive,  a  change 
can  be  distinctly  felt.  It  is  not  a  simple 
weakening  of  the  power  of  employing  instru- 
ments, such  as  befell  Ibsen  when,  after  writing 
The  Lady  from  the  Sea,  he  could  no  longer  keep 
his  symbols  and  his  characters  apart.  It  is  a 
more  subtle  change,  a  combination  of  several 
small  changes,  which  cannot  be  studied  fairly 
in  relation  only  to  one  side  of  Chesterton's 
work.  In  the  last  chapter  an  attempt  will  be 
made  to  analyze  these,  for  the  present  I  can 
only  indicate  some  of  the  fallings-off  noticeable 
in  Manalive,  and  leave  it  at  that.  Chesterton's 
previous  romances  were  not  constructed,  the 
reader  may  have  gathered,  with  that  minute 
attention  to  detail  which  makes  some  modern 
novels  read  like  the  report  of  a  newly  promoted 
detective.  But  a  man  may  do  such  things  and 
yet  be  considered  spotless.  Shakespeare,  after 
all,  went  astray  on  several  points  of  history 
and  geography.  The  authors  of  the  Old 
Testament  talked  about  "the  hare  that  cheweth 
the  cud."  And,  if  any  reader  should  fail  to 
see    the    application    of    these    instances    to 

45 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

modern  fiction,  I  can  only  recommend  him  to 
read  Vanity  Fair  and  find  out  how  many 
children  had  the  Rev.  Bute  Crawley,  and  what 
were  their  names.  No,  the  trouble  with 
Manalive  is  not  in  its  casual,  happy-go-lucky 
construction.  It  is  rather  in  a  certain  lack  of 
ease,  a  tendency  to  exaggerate  effects,  a  con- 
tinual stirring  up  of  inconsiderable  points. 
But  let  us  come  to  the  story. 

There  is  a  boarding-house  situated  on  one 
of  the  summits  of  the  Northern  Heights.  A 
great  wind  happens,  and  a  large  man,  quite 
literally,  blows  in.  His  name  is  Innocent 
Smith  and  he  is  naturally  considered  insane. 
But  he  is  really  almost  excessively  sane.  His 
presence  makes  life  at  the  house  a  sort  of 
holiday  for  the  inmates,  male  and  female. 
Smith  is  about  to  run  for  a  special  licence  in 
order  to  marry  one  of  the  women  in  the  house, 
and  the  other  boarders  have  just  paired  off 
when  a  telegram  posted  by  one  of  the  ladies 
in  a  misapprehension  brings  two  lunacy  experts 
around  in  a  cab.  Smith  adds  to  the  excite- 
ment of  the  moment  by  putting  a  couple  of 
bullets  through  a  doctor's  hat. 

Now  Smith  is  what  somebody  calls  "  an 
allegorical  practical  joker."  But  Chesterton 
gives  a  better  description  of  him  than 
that. 

46 


THE    ROMANCER 

He's  comic  just  because  he's  so  startlingly  common- 
place. Don't  you  know  what  it  is  to  be  in  all  one 
family  circle,  with  aunts  and  uncles,  when  a  school- 
boy comes  home  for  the  holidays  ?  That  bag  there 
on  the  cab  is  only  a  schoolboy's  hamper.  This  tree 
here  in  the  garden  is  only  the  sort  of  tree  that  any 
schoolboy  would  have  climbed.  Yes,  that's  the  sort 
of  thing  that  has  haunted  us  all  about  him,  the  thing 
we  could  never  fit  a  word  to.  Whether  he  is  my  old 
schoolfellow  or  no,  at  least  he  is  all  my  old  school- 
fellows. He  is  the  endless  bun-eating,  ball-throwing 
animal  that  we  have  all  been. 

Innocent  has  an  idea  about  every  few 
minutes,  but  so  far  as  the  book  is  concerned 
we  need  mention  only  one  of  them.  That  one 
is — local  autonomy  for  Beacon  House.  This 
may  be  recommended  as  a  game  to  be  played 
en  famille.  Establish  a  High  Court,  call  in  a 
legal  member,  and  get  a  constitution.  The 
rest  will  be  very  hilarious.  The  legal  member 
of  the  Beacon  House  menage  is  an  Irish  ex- 
barrister,  one  Michael  Moon,  who  plans  as 
follows  : 

The  High  Court  of  Beacon,  he  declared,  was  a 
splendid  example  of  our  free  and  sensible  constitu- 
tion. It  had  been  founded  by  King  John  in  defiance 
of  Magna  Carta,  and  now  held  absolute  power  over 
windmills,  wine  and  spirit  licences,  ladies  travelling 
in  Turkey,  revision  of  sentences  for  dog-stealing  and 
parricide,  as  well  as  anything  whatever  that  hap- 
pened in  the  town  of  Market  Bosworth.     The  whole 

47 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

hundred  and  nine  seneschals  of  the  High  Court  of 
Beacon  met  about  once  in  every  four  centuries  ;  but 
in  the  intervals  (as  Mr.  Moon  explained)  the  whole 
powers  of  the  institution  were  vested  in  Mrs.  Duke 
[the  landlady].  Tossed  about  among  the  rest  of  the 
company,  however,  the  High  Court  did  not  retain  its 
historical  and  legal  seriousness,  but  was  used  some- 
what unscrupulously  in  a  riot  of  domestic  detail.  If 
somebody  spilt  the  Worcester  Sauce  on  the  table- 
cloth, he  was  quite  sure  it  was  a  rite  without  which 
the  sittings  and  findings  of  the  Court  would  be 
invalid ;  and  if  somebody  wanted  a  window  to 
remain  shut,  he  would  suddenly  remember  that  none 
but  the  third  son  of  the  lord  of  the  manor  of  Penge 
had  the  right  to  open  it.  They  even  went  the  length 
of  making  arrests  and  conducting  criminal  inquiries. 

Before  this  tribunal  Innocent  Smith  is 
brought.  One  alienist  is  an  American,  who  is 
quite  prepared  to  acknowledge  its  jurisdiction, 
being  by  reason  of  his  nationality  not  easily 
daunted  by  mere  constitutional  queerness. 
The  other  doctor,  being  the  prosecutor  and  a 
boarder,  has  no  choice  in  the  matter.  The 
doctors,  it  should  be  added,  have  brought  with 
them  a  mass  of  documentary  evidence,  incrimi- 
nating Smith. 

How  the  defence  has  time  to  collect  this 
evidence  is  not  explained,  but  this  is  just  one 
of  the  all-important  details  which  do  not 
matter  in  the  Chestertonian  plane.     Smith  is 

48 


THE    ROMANCER 

tried  for  attempted  murder.    The  prosecution 
fails  because  the  evidence  shows  Smith  to  be 
a  first-class  shot,  who  has  on  occasion  fired  life 
into  people  by  frightening  them.     Then  he  is 
tried  for  burglary  on  the  basis  of  a  clergyman's 
letter  from  which  it  is  gathered  that  Smith 
tried   one   night   to   induce   him   and   another 
cleric  to   enter   a   house   burglariously   in  the 
dark.     This   charge   breaks   down   because   a 
letter  is  produced  from  the  other  clergyman 
who  did  actually  accompany  Smith  over  house- 
tops and  down  through  trap-doors — into  his  own 
house  !    Smith,  it  is  explained,  is  in  the  habit 
of  keeping  himself  awake  to  the  romance  and 
wonder  of  everyday  existence  by  such  courses. 
From  the  second  letter,  however,  it  appears 
that  there  is  a  Mrs.  Smith,  so  the  next  charge 
is  one  of  desertion  and  attempted  bigamy.    A 
series  of  documents  is  produced,  from  persons 
in  France,   Russia,   China,  and  California  re- 
counting  conversations    with    Smith,    a    man 
with  a  garden-rake,  who  left  his  house  so  that 
he  might  find  it,  and  at  the  end  leapt  over  the 
hedge  into  the  garden  where  Mrs.  Smith  was 
having  tea.     In  the  words  of  the  servant  "  he 
looked  round  at  the  garden  and  said,  very  loud 
and  strong  :    '  Oh,  what  a  lovely  place  you've 
got,'  just  as  if  he'd  never  seen  it  before."    After 
which    the    court    proceeds   to   try  Smith    on 
D  49 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

a  polygamy  charge.  Documentary  evidence 
shows  that  Smith  has  at  one  time  or  another 
married  a  Miss  Green,  a  Miss  Brown,  a  Miss 
Black,  just  as  he  is  now  about  to  marry  a  Miss 
Gray,  Moon  points  out  that  these  are  all  the 
same  lady.  Innocent  Smith  has  merely  broken 
the  conventions,  he  has  religiously  kept  the 
commandments.  He  has  burgled  his  own 
house,  and  married  his  own  wife.  He  has  been 
perfectly  innocent,  and  therefore  he  has  been 
perfectly  merry.  Innocent  is  acquitted,  and 
the  book  ends. 

In  the  course  of  Manalive,  somebody  says, 
"  Going  right  round  the  world  is  the  shortest 
way  to  where  you  are  already."  These  are  the 
words  of  an  overworked  epigrammatist,  and 
upon  them  hangs  the  whole  story.  If  Manalive 
is  amusing,  it  is  because  Chesterton  has  a  style 
which  could  make  even  a  debilitated  paradox 
of  great  length  seem  amusing.  The  book  has 
a  few  gorgeous  passages.  Among  the  docu- 
ments read  at  the  trial  of  Innocent  Smith,  for 
example,  is  a  statement  made  by  a  Trans- 
Siberian  station-master,  which  is  a  perfectly 
exquisite  burlesque  at  the  expense  of  the 
Russian  intelligenzia.  The  whole  series  of 
documents,  in  fact,  are  delightful  bits  of  self- 
expression  on  the  part  of  a  very  varied  team 
of  selves.    While  Chesterton  is  able  to  turn  out 

50 


THE    ROMANCER 

such  things  we  must  be  content  to  take  the 
page,  and  not  the  story,  as  his  vmit  of  work. 
Manalive,  by  the  way,  is  the  first  of  the 
author's  stories  in  which  women  are  repre- 
sented as  talking  to  one  another.  Chesterton 
seems  extraordinarily  shy  with  his  feminine 
characters.  He  is  a  little  afraid  of  woman. 
"  The  average  woman  is  a  despot,  the  average  > 
man  is  a  serf.''^  Mrs.  Innocent  Smith's  view 
of  men  is  in  keeping  with  this  peculiar  notion. 
"  At  certain  curious  times  they're  just  fit  to 
take  care  of  us,  and  they're  never  fit  to  take 
care  of  themselves."  Smith  is  the  Chester- 
tonian  Parsifal,  just  as  Prince  Muishkin  is 
Dostoievsky's. 

The  transcendental  type  of  detective,  first 
sketched  out  in  The  Club  of  Queer  Trades,  is 
developed  more  fully  in  the  two  Father  Brown 
books.  In  the  little  Roman  priest  who  has 
such  a  wonderful  instinct  for  placing  the 
diseased  spots  in  people's  souls,  we  have 
Chesterton's  completest  and  most  human  crea- 
tion. Yet,  with  all  their  cleverness,  and  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  from  internal  evidence  it 
is  almost  blatantly  obvious  that  the  author 
enjoyed  writing  these  stories,  they  bear  marks 
which  put  the  books  on  a  lower  plane  than 
either  The  Napoleon  of  N oiling  Hill  or  The  Ball 

*  All  Things  Considered,  p.  106. 

51 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

and  the  Cross.  In  the  latter  book  Chesterton 
spoke  of  "  the  mere  healthy  and  heathen  horror 
of  the  unclean  ;  the  mere  inhuman  hatred  of 
the  inhuman  state  of  madness."  His  own 
critical  work  had  been  a  long  protest  against 
the  introduction  of  artificial  horrors,  a  plea  for 
sanity  and  the  exercise  of  sanity.  But  in  The 
Innocence  of  Father  Brown  these  principles, 
almost  the  fundamental  ones  of  literary  decency, 
were  put  on  the  shelf.  Chesterton's  criminals 
are  lunatics,  perhaps  it  is  his  belief  that  crime 
and  insanity  are  inseparable.  But  even  if  this 
last  supposition  is  correct,  its  approval  would 
not  necessarily  license  the  introduction  of  some 
of  the  characters.  There  is  Israel  Gow,  who 
suffers  from  a  peculiar  mania  which  drives  him 
to  collect  gold  from  places  seemly  and  un- 
seemly, even  to  the  point  of  digging  up  a 
corpse  in  order  to  extract  the  gold  filling  from 
its  teeth.  There  is  the  insane  French  Chief  of 
Police,  who  commits  a  murder  and  attempts 
to  disguise  the  body,  and  the  nature  of  the 
crime,  by  substituting  the  head  of  a  guillotined 
criminal  for  that  of  the  victim.  In  another 
story  we  have  the  picture  of  a  cheerful  teeto- 
taller who  suffers  from  drink  and  suicidal 
mania.  There  is  also  a  doctor  who  kills  a  mad 
poet,  and  a  mad  priest  who  drops  a  hammer 
from   the   top  of  his   church-tower  upon  his 

52 


THE    ROMANCER 

brother.  Another  story  is  about  the  loathsome 
treachery  of  an  Enghsh  general.  It  is,  of  course, 
difficult  to  write  about  crime  without  touching 
on  features  which  revolt  the  squeamish  reader, 
but  it  can  be  done,  and  it  has  been  done,  as  in 
the  Sherlock  Holmes  stories.  There  are  sub- 
jects about  which  one  instinctively  feels  it  is 
not  good  to  know  too  much.  Sex,  for  example, 
is  one  of  them.  Strindberg,  Weininger,  Mau- 
passant, Jules  de  Goncourt,  knew  too  much 
about  sex,  and  they  all  went  mad,  although  it 
is  usual  to  disguise  the  fact  in  the  less  familiar 
terms  of  medical  science.  Madness  itself  is 
another  such  subject.  There  are  writers  who 
dwell  on  madness  because  they  cannot  help 
themselves — Strindberg,  Edgar  Allan  Poe, 
Gogol,  and  many  others — but  they  scarcely 
produce  the  same  nauseating  sensation  as  the 
sudden  introduction  of  the  note  of  insanity 
into  a  hitherto  normal  setting.  The  harnessing 
of  the  horror  into  which  the  discovery  of  in- 
sanity reacts  is  a  favourite  device  of  the  feeble 
craftsman,  but  it  is  illegitimate.  It  is  abso- 
lutely opposed  to  those  elementary  canons  of 
good  taste  which  decree  that  we  may  not  jest 
at  the  expense  of  certain  things,  either  because 
they  are  too  sacred  or  not  sacred  enough.  The 
opposite  of  a  decadent  author  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  writer  who  attacks  decadents.     Many 

53 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

decadents  have  attacked  themselves,  by  com- 
mitting suicide,  for  example.  The  opposite  of 
a  decadent  author  is  one  to  whom  decadent 
ideas  and  imagery  are  alien,  which  is  a  very 
different  thing.  For  example,  the  whole  story 
The  Wrong  Shape  is  filled  with  decadent  ideas  ; 
one  is  sure  that  Baudelaire  would  have  en- 
tirely approved  of  it.  It  includes  a  decadent 
poet,  living  in  wildly  Oriental  surroundings, 
attended  by  a  Hindoo  servant.  Even  the  air 
of  the  place  is  decadent ;  Father  Brown  on 
entering  the  house  learns  instinctively  from  it 
that  a  crime  is  to  be  committed. 

Considered  purely  as  detective  stories,  these 
cannot  be  granted  a  very  good  mark.  There 
is  scarcely  a  story  that  has  not  a  serious  flaw 
in  it.  A  man — Flambeau,  of  whom  more  later 
— gains  admittance  to  a  small  and  select  dinner 
party  and  almost  succeeds  in  stealing  the  silver, 
by  the  device  of  turning  up  and  pretending  to 
be  a  guest  when  among  the  waiters,  and  a 
waiter  when  among  the  guests.  But  it  is  not 
explained  what  he  did  during  the  first  two 
courses  of  that  dinner,  when  he  obviously  had 
to  be  either  a  waiter  or  a  guest,  and  could  not 
keep  up  both  parts,  as  when  the  guests  were 
arriving.  Another  man,  a  "  Priest  of  Apollo," 
is  worshipping  the  sun  on  the  top  of  a  "  sky- 
scraping  "  block  of  offices  in  Westminster,  while 

54 


THE    ROMANCER 

a  woman  falls  dov/n  a  lift-shaft  and  is  killed. 
Father  Brown  immediately  concludes  that  the 
priest  is  guilty  of  the  murder  because,  had  he 
been  unprepared,  he  would  have  started  and 
looked  round  at  the  scream  and  the  crash  of 
the  victim  falling.     But  a  man  absorbed  in 
prayer  on,  let  us  say,  a  tenth  floor,  is,  in  point 
of  fact,  quite  unlikely  to  hear  a  crash  in  the 
basement,   or  a  scream  even  nearer  to  him. 
But  the  most  astonishing  thing  about  The  Eye 
of  Apollo  is  the  staging.     In  order  to  provide 
the  essentials,  Mr.  Chesterton  has  to  place  "  the 
heiress  of  a  crest  and  half  a  county,  as  well  as 
great    wealth,"    who    is    blind,    in    a    typist's 
office  !    The  collocation  is  somewhat  too  singu- 
lar.   One  might  go  right  through  the  Father 
Brown   stories   in  this   manner.     But,   if  the 
reader  wishes  to  draw  the  maximum  of  enjoy- 
ment out  of  them,  he  will  do  nothing  of  the 
sort.     He  will  believe,  as  fervently  as  Alfred 
de  Vigny,  that  L'Idee  C'est  Tout,  and  lay  down 
all  petty  regard  for  detail  at  the  feet  of  Father 
Brown.     This  little  Roman  cleric  has  hstened 
to  so  many  confessions  (he  calls  himself  "  a  man 
who  does  next  to  nothing  but  hear  men's  real 
sins,"  but  this  seems  to  be  excessive,  even  for 
a    Roman    Catholic)    that    he    is    really    well 
acquainted  with  the  human  soul.     He  is  also 
extremely  observant.    And  his  greatest  friend 

55 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

is  Flambeau,  whom  he  once  brings  to  judg- 
ment, twice  hinders  in  crime,  and  thence- 
forward accompanies  on  detective  expeditions. 

The  Innocence  of  Father  Brown  had  a  sequel. 
The  Wisdom  of  Father  Brown,  distinctly  less 
effective,  as  sequels  always  are,  than  the  pre- 
decessor. But  the  underlying  ideas  are  the 
same.  In  the  first  place  there  is  a  deep  detes- 
tation of  "  Science  "  (whatever  that  is)  and 
the  maintenance  of  the  theory  incarnate  in 
Father  Brown,  that  he  who  can  read  the  human 
soul  knows  all  things.  The  detestation  of 
science  (of  which,  one  gathers,  Chesterton 
knows  nothing)  is  carried  to  the  same  absurd 
length  as  in  The  Ball  and  the  Cross.  In  the 
very  first  story.  Father  Brown  calls  on  a 
criminologist  ostensibly  in  order  to  consult 
him,  actually  in  order  to  show  the  unfortunate 
man,  who  had  retired  from  business  fourteen 
years  ago,  what  an  extraordinary  fool  he  was. 

The  Father  Brown  of  these  stories — moon- 
faced little  man — is  a  peculiar  creation.  No 
other  author  would  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
excogitate  him,  and  then  treat  him  so  badly. 
As  a  detective  he  never  gets  a  fair  chance.  He 
is  always  on  the  spot  when  a  murder  is  due  to 
be  committed,  generally  speaking  he  is  there 
before  time.  When  an  absconding  banker 
commits  suicide  under  peculiar  circumstances 

56 


THE    ROMANCER 

in  Italian  mountains,  when  a  French  pubheist 
advertises  himself  by  fighting  duels  with  him- 
self (very  nearly),  when  a  murder  is  committed 
in  the  dressing-room  corridor  of  a  theatre, 
when  a  miser  and  blackmailer  kills  himself, 
when  a  lunatic  admiral  attempts  murder  and 
then  commits  suicide,  when  amid  much  in- 
coherence a  Voodoo  murder  takes  place,  when 
somebody  tries  to  kill  a  colonel  by  playing  on 
his  superstitions  (and  by  other  methods),  and 
when  a  gentleman  commits  suicide  from  envy, 
Father  Brown  is  always  there.  One  might 
almost  interpret  the  Father  Brown  stories  by 
suggesting  that  their  author  had  written  them 
in  order  to  illustrate  the  sudden  impetus  given 
to  murder  and  suicide  by  the  appearance  of 
a  Roman  priest. 

Here  we  may  suspend  our  reviews  of  Ches- 
tertonian  romance.  There  remains  yet  The 
Flying  Inn,  which  shall  be  duly  considered 
along  with  the  other  debris  of  its  author.  In 
summing  up,  it  may  be  said  of  Chesterton  that 
at  his  best  he  invented  new  possibilities  of 
romance  and  a  new  and  hearty  laugh.  It  may 
be  said  of  the  decadents  of  the  eighteen 
nineties,  that  if  their  motto  wasn't  "  Let's  all 
go  bad,"  it  should  have  been.  So  one  may 
say  of  Chesterton  that  if  he  has  not  selected 
"  Let's  all  go  mad  "  as  a  text,  he  should  have 

57 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

done.  Madness,  in  the  Chestertonian,  what- 
ever it  is  in  the  pathological  sense,  is  a  defiance 
of  convention,  a  loosening  of  visible  bonds  in 
order  to  show  the  strength  of  the  invisible 
ones  ;  perhaps,  as  savages  are  said  to  regard 
lunatics  with  great  respect,  holding  them  to  be 
nearer  the  Deity  than  most,  so  Chesterton 
believes  of  his  own  madmen.  Innocent  Smith, 
of  course,  the  simple  fool,  the  blithering  idiot, 
is  a  truly  wise  man. 


58 


Ill 

THE    MAKER    OF    MAGIC 

Chesterton's  only  play,  Magic,  was  written 
at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Kenelm  Foss  and 
produced  by  him  in  November,  1913,  at  the 
Little  Theatre,  where  it  enjoyed  a  run  of  more 
than  one  hundred  performances.  This  charm- 
ing thing  does  not  make  one  wish  that  Ches- 
terton was  an  habitual  playwright,  for  one  feels 
that  Magic  was  a  sort  of  tank  into  which  its 
author's  dramatic  talents  had  been  draining 
for  many  years— although,  in  actual  fact, 
Chesterton  allowed  newspaper  interviewers  to 
learn  that  the  play  had  been  written  in  a  very 
short  space  of  time.  His  religious  ideas  were 
expressed  in  Magic  with  great  neatness.  Most 
perhaps  of  all  his  works  this  is  a  quotable 
production. 

Patricia  Carleon,  a  niece  of  the  Duke,  her 
guardian,  is  in  the  habit  of  wandering  about 
his  grounds  seeing  fairies.  On  the  night  when 
her  brother  Morris  is  expected  to  return  from 
America   she   is   having  a  solitary   moonlight 

59 


ft 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

stroll  when  she  sees  a  Stranger,  "  a  cloaked 
figure  with  a  pointed  hood,"  which  last  almost 
covers  his  face.  She  naturally  asks  him  what 
he  is  doing  there.  He  replies,  mapping  out  the 
ground  with  his  staff  : 

I  have  a  hat,  but  not  to  wear  ; 
I  have  a  sword,  but  not  to  slay  ; 
And  ever  in  my  bag  I  bear 
A  pack  of  cards,  but  not  to  play. 

This,  he  tells  her,  is  the  language  of  fairies.  He 
tells  her  that  fairies  are  not  small  things,  but 
quite  the  reverse.  After  a  few  sentences  have 
been  spoken  the  prologue  comes  to  an  end, 
and  the  curtain  rises  upon  the  scene  of  the 
play,  the  drawing-room  of  the  Duke.  Here  is 
seated  the  Rev.  Cyril  Smith,  a  young  clergy- 
man, "  an  honest  man  and  not  an  ass."  To 
him  enters  the  Duke's  Secretary,  to  tell  him 
the  Duke  is  engaged  at  the  moment,  but  will 
be  down  shortly.  He  is  followed  by  Dr.  Grim- 
thorpe,  an  elderly  agnostic,  the  red  lamp  of 
whose  house  can  be  seen  through  the  open 
French  windows.  Smith  is  erecting  a  model 
public-house  in  the  village,  and  has  come  to 
ask  the  Duke  for  a  contribution  towards  the 
cost.  Grimthorpe  is  getting  up  a  league  for 
opposing  the  erection  of  the  new  public-house, 
and  has  also  come  to  the  Duke  for  help.  They 
discover   the   nature   of  each   other's   errand. 

60 


THE    MAKER   OF    MAGIC 

Smith's  case  is,  "  How  can  the  Church  have  a 
right  to  make  men  fast  if  she  does  not  allow 
them  to  feast  ?  "  ;  Grimthorpe's,  that  alcohol 
is  not  a  food.  The  Duke's  Secretary  enters 
and  gives  Smith  a  cheque  for  £50,  then  he 
gives  the  Doctor  another — also  for  £50.  This 
is  the  first  glimpse  we  have  of  the  Duke's 
eccentricity,  an  excessive  impartiahty  based 
on  the  theory  that  everybody  "  does  a  great 
deal  of  good  in  his  own  way,"  and  on  sheer 
absence  of  mind — an  absence  which  sometimes 
is  absolutely  literal.  The  Doctor  explains  in 
confidence  to  the  Clergyman  that  there  is  some- 
thing wrong  about  the  family  of  Patricia  and 
Morris,  who  are  of  Irish  origin.  ..."  They  saw 
fairies  and  things  of  that  sort." 

Smith.  And  I  suppose,  to  the  medical  mind,  seeing 
fairies  means  much  the  same  as  seeing  snakes  ? 

Doctor.  [With  a  sour  smile.]  Well,  they  saw 
them  in  Ireland.  I  suppose  it's  quite  correct  to  see 
fairies  in  Ireland.  It's  like  gambling  at  Monte  Carlo. 
It's  quite  respectable.  But  I  do  draw  the  line  at  their 
seeing  fairies  in  England.  I  do  object  to  their  bring- 
ing their  ghosts  and  goblins  and  witches  into  the  poor 
Duke's  own  back  garden  and  within  a  yard  of  my 
own  red  lamp.    It  shows  a  lack  of  tact. 

Patricia,  moreover,  wanders  about  the  park 
and    the    woods    in    the    evenings.      "  Damp 
evenings  for^  choice.     She  calls  it  the  Celtic 
A\  61 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

twilight.  I've  no  use  for  the  Celtic  twilight 
myself.  It  has  a  tendency  to  get  on  the  chest." 
The  Duke,  annoyed  by  this  love  of  fairies,  has 
blundered,  in  his  usual  way,  on  an  absurd  com- 
promise between  the  real  and  the  ideal.  A 
conjuror  is  to  come  that  very  night.  When 
explanations  have  gone  so  far,  the  Duke  at 
last  makes  his  entry.  The  stage  directions  tell 
us  that  "  in  the  present  state  of  the  peerage 
it  is  necessary  to  explain  that  the  Duke, 
though  an  ass,  is  a  gentleman."  His  thoughts 
are  the  most  casual  on  earth.  He  is  always 
being  reminded  of  something  or  somebody 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  As  for 
instance,  "  I  saw  the  place  you're  putting  up 
.  .  .  Mr.  Smith.  Very  good  work.  Very  good 
work,  indeed.  Art  for  the  people,  eh  ?  I  par- 
ticularly liked  that  woodwork  over  the  west 
door — I'm  glad  to  see  you're  using  the  new 
sort  of  graining  .  .  .  why,  it  all  reminds  one 
of  the  French  Revolution."  After  one  or  two 
dissociations  of  this  sort,  the  expected  Morris 
Carleon  enters  through  the  French  window  ; 
he  is  rather  young  and  excitable,  and  America 
has  overlaid  the  original  Irishman.  Morris 
immediately  asks  for  Patricia  and  is  told  that 
she  is  wandering  in  the  garden.  The  Duke 
lets  out  that  she  sees  fairies  ;  Morris  raves  a 
bit  about  his  sister  being  allowed  out  alone 

62  , 


THE    MAKER    OF    MAGIC 

with  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  man,  when 
Patricia  herself  enters.  She  is  in  a  shghtly 
exalted  state  ;  she  has  just  seen  her  fairy,  him 
of  the  pointed  hood.  Morris,  of  course,  is 
furious,  not  to  say  suspicious. 

Doctor.  [Putting  his  hand  on  Morris's  shoulder.] 
Come,  you  must  allow  a  little  more  for  poetry.  We 
can't  all  feed  on  nothing  but  petrol. 

Duke.  Quite  right,  quite  right.  And  being  Irish, 
don't  you  know,  Celtic,  as  old  Buffle  used  to  say, 
charming  songs,  you  know,  about  the  Irish  girl  who 
.has  a  plaid  shawl — and  a  Banshee.  [Sighs  pro- 
foundly.]   Poor  old  Gladstone  !    [Silence.] 

Smith.  [Speaking  to  Doctor.]  I  thought  you 
yourself  considered  the  family  superstition  bad  for 
the  health  ? 

Doctor.  I  consider  a  family  superstition  is  better 
for  the  health  than  a  family  quarrel. 

A  figure  is  seen  to  stand  in  front  of  the  red 
lamp,  blotting  it  out  for  a  moment.  Patricia 
calls  to  it,  and  the  cloaked  Stranger  with  the 
pointed  hood  enters.  Morris  at  once  calls  him 
a  fraud. 

Smith.  [Quickly.]  Pardon  me,  I  do  not  fancy 
that  we  know  that  .  .  . 

Morris.  I  didn't  know  you  parsons  stuck  up  for 
any  fables  but  your  own. 

Smith.  I  stick  up  for  the  thing  every  man  has  a 
right  to.  Perhaps  the  only  thing  every  man  has  a 
right  to. 

63 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Morris.    And  what  is  that  ? 
Smith.    The  benefit  of  the  doubt. 

Morris  returns  to  the  attack.  The  Stranger 
throws  off  his  hood  and  reveals  himself  to  the 
Duke.  He  is  the  Conjuror,  ready  for  the  even- 
ing's performance.  All  laugh  at  this  denoue- 
ment, except  Patricia,  between  whom  and  the 
Conjuror  this  bit  of  dialogue  ensues  : 

Stranger.  [Very  sadly.]  I  am  very  sorry  I  am 
not  a  wizard. 

Patricia.    I  wish  you  were  a  thief  instead. 

Stranger.  Have  I  committed  a  worse  crime  than 
thieving  ? 

Patricia.  You  have  committed  the  cruellest 
crime,  I  think,  that  there  is. 

Stranger.    And  what  is  the  cruellest  crime  ? 

Patricia.    Stealing  a  child's  toy. 

Stranger.    And  what  have  I  stolen  ? 

Patricia.    A  fairy  tale. 

And  the  curtain  falls  upon  the  First  Act. 

An  hour  later  the  room  is  being  prepared 
for  the  performance.  The  Conjuror  is  setting 
out  his  tricks,  and  the  Duke  is  entangling  him 
and  the  Secretary  in  his  peculiar  conversation. 
The  following  is  characteristic  : 

The  Secretary.  .  .  .  The  only  other  thing  at  all 
urgent  is  the  Militant  Vegetarians. 

Duke.    Ah  !    The  Militant  Vegetarians  !    You've 

64 


THE    MAKER    OF    MAGIC 

heard  of  them,  I'm  sure.  Won't  obey  the  law  [to  the 
Conjuror]  so  long  as  the  Government  serves  out  meat. 

Conjuror.  Let  them  be  comforted.  There  are  a 
good  many  people  who  don't  get  much  meat. 

Duke.  Well,  well,  I'm  bound  to  say  they're  very 
enthusiastic.  Advanced,  too — oh,  certainly  advanced. 
Like  Joan  of  Arc. 

[Short  silence,  in  which  the  Conjuror  stares  at  him.] 

Conjuror.    Was  Joan  of  Arc  a  Vegetarian  ? 

Duke.  Oh,  well,  it's  a  very  high  ideal,  after  all. 
The  Sacredness  of  Life,  you  know — the  Sacredness  of 
Life.  [Shakes  his  head.]  But  they  carry  it  too  far. 
They  killed  a  policeman  down  in  Kent. 

This  conversation  goes  on  for  some  time, 
vi^hile  nothing  in  particular  happens,  except 
that  the  audience  feels  very  happy.  The  Duke 
asks  the  Conjuror  several  questions,  receiving 
thoroughly  Chestertonian  answers.  ["  Are  you 
interested  in  modern  progress  ?  "  "  Yes.  We 
are  interested  in  all  tricks  done  by  illusion."] 
At  last  the  Conjuror  is  left  alone.  Patricia 
enters.  He  attempts  to  excuse  himself  for  the 
theft  of  the  fairy  tale.  He  has  had  a  trouble- 
some life,  and  has  never  enjoyed  "  a  holiday 
in  Fairyland."  So,  when  he,  with  his  hood  up, 
because  of  the  slight  rain,  was  surprised  by 
Patricia,  as  he  was  rehearsing  his  patter,  and 
taken  for  a  fairy,  he  played  up  to  her.  Patricia 
is  inclined  to  forgive  him,  but  the  conversation 
is  interrupted  by  the  entrance  of  Morris,  in  a 
E  65 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

mood  to  be  offensive.  He  examines  the  ap- 
paratus, proclaims  the  way  it  is  worked,  and 
after  a  while  breaks  out  into  a  frenzy  of  free 
thought,  asking  the  universe  in  general  and 
the  Conjuror  in  particular  for  "  that  old 
apparatus  that  turned  rods  into  snakes."  The 
Clergyman  and  the  Doctor  enter,  and  the  con- 
versation turns  on  religion,  and  then  goes  back 
to  the  tricks.  Morris  is  still  extremely  quarrel- 
some, and  for  the  second  time  has  to  be  quieted 
down.  The  Conjuror  is  dignified,  but  cutting. 
The  whole  scene  has  been,  so  far,  a  discussion 
on  Do  Miracles  Happen  ?  Smith  makes  out 
a  case  in  the  affirmative,  arguing  from  the 
false  to  the  true.  Suppose,  as  Morris  claims, 
the  "  modern  conjuring  tricks  are  simply  the 
old  miracles  when  they  have  once  been  found 
out.  .  .  .  When  we  speak  of  things  being 
sham,  we  generally  mean  that  they  are  imita- 
tions of  things  that  are  genuine."  Morris  gets 
more  and  more  excited,  and  continues  to  in- 
sult the  Conjuror.  At  last  he  shouts  ..."  You'll 
no  more  raise  your  Saints  and  Prophets  from 
the  dead  than  you'll  raise  the  Duke's  great- 
grandfather to  dance  on  that  wall."  At  which 
the  Reynolds  portrait  in  question  sways  slightly 
from  side  to  side.  Morris  turns  furiously  to  the 
Conjuror,  accusing  him  of  trickery.  A  chair 
falls  over,  for  no  apparent  cause,  still  further 

66 


THE    MAKER    OF    MAGIC 

exciting  the  youth.  At  last  he  blurts  out  a 
challenge.  The  Doctor's  red  lamp  is  the  lamp 
of  science.  No  power  on  earth  could  change 
its  colour.  And  the  red  light  turns  blue,  for 
a  minute.  Morris,  absolutely  puzzled,  comes 
literally  to  his  wits'  end,  and  rushes  out, 
followed  shortly  afterwards  by  his  sister  and 
the  Doctor.  The  youth  is  put  to  bed,  and  left 
in  the  care  of  Patricia,  while  the  Doctor  and 
the  Clergyman  return  to  their  argument.  Smith 
makes  out  a  strong  case  for  belief,  for  simple 
faith,  a  case  which  sounds  strangely,  coming 
from  the  lips  of  a  clergyman  of  the  Church 
of  England. 

Doctor.  Weren't  there  as  many  who  believed 
passionately  in  Apollo  ? 

Smith.  And  what  harm  came  of  believing  in 
Apollo  ?  And  what  a  mass  of  harm  may  have  come 
of  not  believing  in  Apollo  ?  Does  it  never  strike  you 
that  doubt  can  be  a  madness,  as  well  be  faith  ?  That 
asking  questions  may  be  a  disease,  as  well  as  pro- 
claiming doctrines  ?  You  talk  of  religious  mania  ! 
Is  there  no  such  thing  as  irreligious  mania  ?  Is  there 
no  such  thing  in  the  house  at  this  moment  ? 

Doctor.  Then  you  think  no  one  should  question 
at  all  ? 

Smith.  [With  passion,  pointing  to  the  next  room.] 
I  think  that  is  what  comes  of  questioning  !  Why  can't 
you  leave  the  universe  alone  and  let  it  mean  what  it 
li'kes  ?      Why    shouldn't    the    thunder    be    Jupiter  ? 

67 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

More  men  have  made  themselves  silly  by  wondering 
what  the  devil  it  was  if  it  wasn't  Jupiter. 

Doctor.  [Looking  at  Jmn.]  Do  you  believe  in  your 
own  religion  ? 

Smith.  [Returning  the  look  equally  steadily.]  Sup- 
pose I  don't  :  I  should  still  be  a  fool  to  question  it. 
The  child  who  doubts  about  Santa  Claus  has  in- 
somnia. The  child  who  believes  has  a  good  night's 
rest. 

Doctor.    You  are  a  Pragmatist. 

Smith.  That  is  what  the  lawyers  call  vulgar  abuse. 
But  I  do  appeal  to  practice.  Here  is  a  family  over 
which  you  tell  me  a  mental  calamity  hovers.  Here  is 
the  boy  who  questions  everything  and  a  girl  who 
can  believe  anything.  Upon  whom  has  the  curse 
fallen  ? 

At  this  point  the  curtain  was  made  to  fall 
on  the  Second  Act.  The  Third  and  last  Act 
takes  place  in  the  same  room  a  few  hours  later. 
The  Conjuror  has  packed  his  bag,  and  is  going. 
The  Doctor  has  been  sitting  up  with  the 
patient.  Morris  is  in  a  more  or  less  delirious 
state,  and  is  continually  asking  how  the  trick 
was  done.  The  Doctor  believes  that  the  ex- 
planation would  satisfy  the  patient  and  would 
probably  help  him  to  turn  the  corner.  But  the 
Conjuror  will  not  provide  an  explanation.  He 
has  many  reasons,  the  most  practical  of  which 
is  that  he  would  not  be  believed.  The  Duke 
comes  in  and  tries  to  make  a  business  matter 

68 


THE    MAKER    OF    MAGIC 

of  the  secret,  even  to  the  extent  of  paying 
£2000  for  it.  Suddenly  the  Conjuror  changes 
his  mind.  He  will  tell  them  how  the  trick  was 
done,  it  was  all  very  simple.  "  It  is  the  sim- 
plest thing  in  the  world.  That  is  why  you  will 
not  laugh.  ...  I  did  it  by  magic."  The 
Doctor  and  the  Duke  are  dumbfounded.  Smith 
intervenes  ;  he  cannot  accept  the  explanation. 
The  Conjuror  lets  himself  go,  now  he  is  voicing 
Chesterton's  views.  The  clergyman  who  merely 
believes  in  belief,  as  Smith  does,  will  not  do. 
He  must  believe  in  a  fact,  which  is  far  more 
difficult. 

Conjuror.  I  say  these  things  are  supernatural. 
I  say  this  is  done  by  a  spirit.  The  doctor  does  not 
believe  me.  He  is  an  agnostic  ;  and  he  knows  every- 
thing. The  Duke  does  not  believe  me  ;  he  cannot 
believe  anything  so  plain  as  a  miracle.  But  what  the 
devil  are  you  for,  if  you  don't  believe  in  a  miracle  ? 
What  does  your  coat  mean  if  it  doesn't  mean  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  supernatural  ?  What 
does  your  cursed  collar  mean  if  it  doesn't  mean  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  spirit  ?  [Exasperated.]  Why 
the  devil  do  you  dress  up  like  that  if  you  don't 
believe  in  it  ?  [With  violence.]  Or  perhaps  you  don't 
believe  in  devils  ? 

Smith.  I  beheve  .  .  .  [After  a  pause.]  I  wish  I 
could  believe. 

Conjuror.    Yes.    I  wish  I  could  disbelieve. 

Here  Patricia  enters.     She  wants  to  speak 
6© 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

to  the  Conjuror,  with  whom  she  is  left  alone. 
A  little  love  scene  takes  place  :  rather  the 
result  of  two  slightly  sentimental  and  rather 
tired  persons  of  different  sexes  being  left  alone 
than  anything  else.  But  they  return  to 
realities,  with  an  effort.  Patricia,  too,  wants 
to  know  how  the  trick  was  done,  in  order  to 
tell  her  brother.  He  tells  her,  but  she  is  of 
the  world  which  cannot  believe  in  devils,  even 
although  it  may  manage  to  accept  fairies  as 
an  inevitable  adjunct  to  landscape  scenery  by 
moonlight.  In  order  to  convince  her  the  Con- 
juror tells  her  how  he  fell,  how  after  dabbling 
in  spiritualism  he  found  he  had  lost  control 
over  himself.  But  he  had  resisted  the  temp- 
tation to  make  the  devils  his  servants,  until 
the  impudence  of  Morris  had  made  him  lose 
his  temper.  Then  he  goes  out  into  the  garden 
to  see  if  he  can  find  some  explanation  to  give 
Morris.  The  Duke,  Smith,  the  Doctor,  and 
the  Secretary  drift  into  the  room,  which  is  now 
tenanted  by  something  impalpable  but  hor- 
rible. The  Conjuror  returns  and  clears  the  air 
with  an  exorcism.  He  has  invented  an  ex- 
planation, which  he  goes  out  to  give  to  Morris. 
Patricia  announces  that  her  brother  immedi- 
ately took  a  turn  for  the  better.  The  Conjuror 
refuses  to  repeat  the  explanation  he  gave 
Morris,  because  if  he  did,  "  Half  an  hour  after 

70 


THE    MAKER    OF    MAGIC 

I  have  left  this  house  you  will  all  be  saying 
how  it  was  done."    He  turns  to  go. 

Patricia.  Our  fairy  tale  has  come  to  an  end  in  the 
only  way  a  fairy  tale  can  come  to  an  end.  The  only 
way  a  fairy  tale  can  leave  off  being  a  fairy  tale. 

Conjuror.    I  don't  understand  you. 

Patricia.    It  has  come  true. 

And  the  curtain  falls  for  the  last  time. 

No  doubt  Magic  owed  a  great  deal  of  its 
success  to  the  admirable  production  of  Mr. 
Kenelm  Foss  and  the  excellence  of  the  cast. 
Miss  Grace  Croft  was  surely  the  true  Patricia. 
Of  the  Duke  of  Mr.  Fred  Lewis  it  is  difficult 
to  speak  in  terms  other  than  superlative. 
Those  of  my  readers  who  have  suffered  the 
misfortune  of  not  having  seen  him,  may  gain 
some  idea  of  his  execution  of  the  part  from  the 
illustrations  to  Mr.  Belloc's  novels.  The  Duke 
was  an  extraordinarily  good  likeness  of  the 
Duke  of  Battersea,  as  portrayed  by  Chesterton, 
with  rather  more  than  a  touch  of  Mr.  Asquith 
superadded.  Mr.  Fred  Lewis,  it  may  be  stated, 
gagged  freely,  introducing  topical  lines  until 
the  play  became  a  revue  in  little — but  without 
injustice  to  the  original.  Several  of  those  who 
saw  Magic  came  for  a  third,  a  fourth,  even  a 
tenth  time. 

The  Editor  of  The  Dublin  Review  had  the 
happy   idea   of  asking   Chesterton   to   review 

71 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Magic.  The  result  is  too  long  to  quote  in  full, 
but  it  makes  two  important  points  which  may 
be  extracted. 

I  will  glide  mercifully  over  the  more  glaring  errors, 
which  the  critics  have  overlooked — as  that  no  Irish- 
man could  become  so  complete  a  cad  merely  by  going 
to  America — that  no  young  lady  would  walk  about  in 
the  rain  so  soon  before  it  was  necessary  to  dress  for 
dinner — that  no  young  man,  however  American, 
could  run  round  a  Duke's  grounds  in  the  time  between 
one  bad  epigram  and  another — that  Dukes  never 
allow  the  middle  classes  to  encroach  on  their  gardens 
so  as  to  permit  a  doctor's  lamp  to  be  seen  there — that 
no  sister,  however  eccentric,  could  conduct  a  slightly 
frivolous  love-scene  with  a  brother  going  mad  in  the 
next  room — that  the  Secretary  disappears  half-way 
through  the  play  without  explaining  himself ;  and 
the  conjuror  disappears  at  the  end,  with  almost  equal 
dignity.  .  .  . 

By  the  exercise  of  that  knowledge  of  all  human 
hearts  which  descends  on  any  man  (however  un- 
worthy) the  moment  he  is  a  dramatic  critic,  I  per- 
ceive that  the  author  of  Magic  originally  wrote  it  as 
a  short  story.  It  is  a  bad  play,  because  it  was  a  good 
short  story.  In  a  short  story  of  mystery,  as  in  a 
Sherlock  Holmes  story,  the  author  and  the  hero  (or 
villain)  keep  the  reader  out  of  the  secret.  .  .  .  But  the 
drama  is  built  on  that  grander  secrecy  which  was 
called  the  Greek  irony.  In  the  drama,  the  audience 
must  know  the  truth  when  the  actors  do  not  know  it. 
That  is  where  the  drama  is  truly  democratic  :  not 
because  the  audience  shouts,  but  because  it  knows — 
and  is  silent.    Now  I  do  quite  seriously  think  it  is  a 

72 


THE    MAKER    OF    MAGIC 

weakness  in  a  play  like  Magic  that  the  audience  is  not 
in  the  central  secret  from  the  start.  Mr.  G.  S.  Street 
put  the  point  with  his  usual  unerring  simplicity  by 
saying  that  he  could  not  help  feeling  disappointed 
with  the  Conjuror  because  he  had  hoped  he  would 
turn  into  the  Devil. 

A  few  additions  may  easily  be  made  to  the 
first  batch  of  criticisms.  Patricia's  welcome 
to  her  brother  is  not  what  a  long-lost  brother 
might  expect.  There  is  really  no  satisfactory 
reason  for  the  Doctor's  continued  presence. 
Patricia  and  Morris  can  only  be  half  Irish  by 
blood,  unless  it  is  possible  to  become  Irish  by 
residence.  Why  should  the  Conjuror  rehearse 
his  patter  out  in  the  wet  ?  Surely  the  Duke's 
house  would  contain  a  spare  room  ?  Where 
did  the  Conjuror  go,  at  the  end  of  the  Third 
Act,  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  ?  And 
so  on. 

But  these  are  little  things  that  do  not  matter 
in  an  allegory.  For  in  Magic  "  things  are  not 
what  they  seem."  The  Duke  is  a  modern  man. 
He  is  also  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil. 
He  has  no  opinions,  no  positive  religion,  no 
brain.  He  believes  in  his  own  tolerance,  which 
is  merely  his  fatuousness.  He  follows  the  line 
of  least  resistance,  and  makes  a  virtue  of  it. 
He  sits  on  the  fence,  but  he  will  never  come 
off.     The  Clergyman  is  the  church  of  to-day, 

73 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

preaching  the  supernatural,  but  unwiUing  to 
recognize  its  existence  at  close  quarters.  As 
somebody  says  somewhere  in  The  Wisdom  of 
Father  Brown,  "  If  a  miracle  happened  in  your 
office,  you'd  have  to  hush  it  up,  now  so  many 
bishops  are  atheists."  The  Doctor  is  a  less 
typical  figure.  He  is  the  inconsistencies  of 
science,  kindly  but  with  little  joy  of  life,  and 
extremely  Chestertonian,  which  is  to  say  un- 
scientific. Morris  is  the  younger  generation, 
obsessed  with  business  and  getting  on,  and 
intellectually  incapable  of  facing  a  religious 
fact.  Patricia  is  the  Chestertonian  good  woman, 
too  essentially  domestic  to  be  ever  fundamen- 
tally disturbed.  The  Conjuror,  if  not  the  Devil, 
is  at  any  rate  that  inexplicable  element  in  all 
life  which  most  people  do  not  see. 

Nevertheless  there  is  a  flaw  in  Magic  which 
really  is  serious.  If  I  were  to  see,  let  us  say, 
a  sheet  of  newspaper  flying  down  the  road 
against  the  wind,  and  a  friend  of  mine,  who 
happened  to  be  a  gifted  liar,  told  me  that  he 
was  directing  the  paper  by  means  of  spirits, 
I  should  still  be  justified  in  believing  that 
another  explanation  could  be  possible.  I 
should  say,  "  My  dear  friend,  your  explanation 
is  romantic  ;  I  believe  in  spirits  but  I  do  not 
believe  in  you.  I  prefer  to  think  that  there 
i^  an  air-current  going  the  wrong  way."    That 

74 


THE    MAKER    OF    MAGIC 

is  the  matter  with  the  Conjuror's  explanation. 
Why  should  the  Clergyman  or  the  Doctor — 
professional  sceptics,  both  of  them,  which  is 
to  say  seekers  after  truth — take  the  word  of 
a  professional  deceiver  as  necessarily  true  ? 

There  are  two  works  which  the  critic  of 
Chesterton  must  take  into  special  considera- 
tion. They  are  Magic  and  Orthodoxy  ;  and  it 
may  be  said  that  the  former  is  a  dramatized 
version  of  the  latter.  The  two  together  are 
a  great  work,  striking  at  the  very  roots  of 
disbelief.  In  a  sense  Chesterton  pays  the 
atheist  a  very  high  comphment.  He  does  what 
the  atheist  is  generally  too  lazy  to  do  for  him- 
self;  he  takes  his  substitute  for  religion  and 
systematizes  it  into  something  like  a  philosophy. 
Then  he  examines  it  as  a  whole.  And  he  finds 
that  atheism  is  dogma  in  its  extremist  form, 
that  it  embodies  a  multitude  of  superstitions, 
and  that  it  is  actually  continually  adding  to 
their  number.  Such  are  the  reasons  of  the 
greatness  of  Magic.  The  play,  one  feels,  must 
remain  unique,  for  the  prolegomenon  cannot 
be  rewritten  while  the  philosophy  is  unchanged. 
And  Chesterton  has  deliberately  chosen  the 
word  orthodox  to  apply  to  himself,  and  he  has 
not  limited  its  meaning.  , 


75 


IV 

THE 
CRITIC    OF    LARGE    THINGS 

The  heroes  of  Chesterton's  romances  have  an 
adipose  diathesis,  as  a  reviewer  has  been  heard 
to  remark.  In  plain  EngHsh  they  tend  towards 
largeness.  Flambeau,  Sunday,  and  Innocent 
Smith  are  big  men.  Chesterton,  as  we  have 
seen,  pays  little  attention  to  his  women  char- 
acters, but  whenever  it  comes  to  pass  that  he 
must  introduce  a  heroine,  he  colours  her  as 
emphatically  as  the  nature  of  things  will 
admit.  Which  is  to  say  that  the  Chestertonian 
heroine  always  has  red  hair. 

These  things  are  symptomatic  of  their  author. 
He  loves  robustness.  If  he  cannot  produce  it, 
he  can  at  any  rate  affect  it,  or  attack  its  enemies. 
This  worship  of  the  robust  is  the  fundamental 
fact  of  all  Chesterton's  work.  For  example,  as 
a  critic  of  letters  he  confines  himself  almost 
exclusively  to  the  big  men.  When  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw  a  few  years  ago  committed  what  Ches- 
terton imagined  was  an  attack  upon  Shake- 

76 


CRITIC    OF    LARGE    THINGS 

speare,  he  almost  instinctively  rushed  to  the 
defence  in  the  columns  of  The  Daily  News. 
When  Chesterton  wrote  a  little  book  on  The 
Victorian  Age  in  Literature  he  showed  no 
interest  in  the  smaller  people.  The  book,  it 
may  be  urged  in  his  excuse,  was  a  little  one, 
but  we  feel  that  even  if  it  was  not,  Chesterton 
would  have  done  much  the  same  thing.  Among 
the  writers  he  omitted  to  mention,  even  by 
name,  are  Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  Harrison  Ains- 
worth,  Walter  Bagehot,  R.  Blackmore,  A.  H. 
Clough,  E.  A.  Freeman,  S.  R.  Gardiner,  George 
Gissing,  J.  R.  Green,  T.  H.  Green,  Henry 
Hallam,  Jean  Ingelow,  Benjamin  Jowett,  W. 
E.  H.  Lecky,  Thomas  Love  Peacock,  W.  M. 
Praed,  and  Mrs.  Humphry  W^ard.  The  criti- 
cism which  feeds  upon  research  and  comparison, 
which  considers  a  new  date  or  the  emendation 
of  a  mispunctuated  line  of  verse,  worthy  of 
effort,  knows  not  Chesterton.  He  is  the  student 
of  the  big  men.  He  has  written  books  about 
Dickens,  Browning,  and  Shaw,  of  whom  only 
one  common  quality  can  be  noted,  which  is 
that  they  are  each  the  subjects  of  at  least 
twenty  other  books.  To  write  about  the  things 
which  have  already  yielded  such  a  huge  crop 
of  criticism  savours  at  first  of  a  lack  of  imagin- 
ation. The  truth  is  quite  otherwise.  Any- 
body, so  to  speak,  can  produce  a  book  about 

77 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Alexander  Pope  because  the  ore  is  at  the  dis- 
posal of  every  miner.  But  that  larger  mine 
called  Dickens  has  been  diligently  worked  by 
two  generations  of  authors,  and  it  would  appear 
that  a  new  one  must  either  plagiarize  or  labour 
extremely  in  order  to  come  upon  fresh  seams. 
But  Chesterton's  taste  for  bigness  has  come  to 
his  service  in  criticism.  It  has  given  him  a 
power  of  seeing  the  large,  obvious  things  which 
the  critic  of  small  things  misses.  He  has  the 
"  thinking  in  millions  "  trick  of  the  statistician 
transposed  to  literary  ends. 

Or  as  a  poet.  The  robustness  is  omni- 
present, and  takes  several  forms.  A  grandilo- 
quence that  sways  uneasily  between  rodomon- 
tade and  mere  verbiage,  a  rotundity  of  diction, 
a  choice  of  subjects  which  can  only  be  described 
as  sanguinolent,  the  use  of  the  bludgeon  where 
others  would  prefer  a  rapier. 

Or  as  a  simple  user  of  words.  Chesterton 
has  a  preference  for  the  big  words  :  awful, 
enormous,  tremendous,  and  so  on.  A  word 
which  occurs  very  often  indeed  is  mystic  :  it 
suggests  that  the  noun  it  qualifies  is  laden  with 
undisclosable  attributes,  and  that  romance  is 
hidden  here. 

Now  all  these  things  add  up,  as  it  were,  to 
a  tendency  to  say  a  thing  as  emphatically  as 
possible.      Emphasis    ot    statement    from    a 

78 


CRITIC    OF    LARGE    THINGS 

humorist  gifted  with  the  use  of  words  results 
sometimes  in  epigram,  sometimes  in  fun,  in  all 
things  except  the  dull  things  (except  when  the 
dullness  is  due  to  an  unhappy  succession  of 
scintillations  which  have  misfired).  For  these 
reasons  Chesterton  is  regarded  as  entirely 
frivolous — by  persons  without  a  sense  of 
humour.  He  is,  in  point  of  fact,  extremely 
serious,  on  those  frequent  occasions  when  he 
is  making  out  a  case.  As  he  himself  points  out, 
to  be  serious  is  not  the  opposite  of  to  be  funny. 
The  opposite  of  to  be  funny  is  not  to  be  funny. 
A  man  may  be  perfectly  serious  in  a  funny  way. 
Now  it  has  befallen  Chesterton  on  more  than 
one  occasion  to  have  to  cross  swords  with  one 
of  the  few  true  atheists,  Mr.  Joseph  MacCabe, 
the  author  of  a  huge  number  of  books,  mostly 
attacking  Clii'istianity,  and  as  devoid  of  humour 
as  an  egg-shell  is  of  hair.  The  differences  and 
the  resemblances  between  Chesterton  and  Mr. 
MacCabe  might  well  be  the  occasion  of  a 
parable.  Chesterton  has  written  some  of  the 
liveliest  books  about  Christianity,  Mr.  MacCabe 
has  written  some  of  the  dullest.  Chesterton 
has  written  the  most  amusing  book  about 
Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  ;  Mr.  MacCabe  has  written 
the  dullest.  Chesterton  and  Mr.  MacCabe  have 
a  habit  of  sparring  at  one  another,  but  up  to 
the  present  I  have  not  noticed  either  make  any 

79 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

palpable  hits.  It  is  all  rather  like  the  Party 
System,  as  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc  depicts  it.  The 
two  antagonists  do  not  understand  each  other 
in  the  least.  But,  to  a  certain  degree,  Mr. 
MacCabe's  confusion  is  the  fault  of  Chesterton 
and  not  of  his  own  lack  of  humour.  When 
Chesterton  says,  "  I  also  mean  every  word  I 
say,"  he  is  saying  something  he  does  not  mean. 
He  is  sometimes  funny,  but  not  serious,  like 
Mr.  George  Robey.  He  is  sometimes  irritating, 
but  not  serious,  like  a  circus  clown.  And  he 
sometimes  appears  to  be  critical,  but  is  not 
serious,  like  the  young  lady  from  Walworth 
in  front  of  a  Bond  Street  shop-window,  regret- 
ting that  she  could  not  possibly  buy  the 
crockery  and  glass  displayed  because  the 
monogram  isn't  on  right.  Chesterton's  readers 
have  perhaps  spoiled  him.  He  has  pleaded, 
so  to  speak,  for  the  inalienable  and  mystic 
right  of  every  man  to  be  a  blithering  idiot  in 
all  seriousness.  So  seriously,  in  fact,  that  when 
he  exercised  this  inalienable  and  mystic  right, 
the  only  man  not  in  the  secret  was  G.  K. 
Chesterton. 

There  are  few  tasks  so  ungrateful  as  the 
criticism  of  a  critic's  criticisms,  unless  it  be 
the  job  of  criticizing  the  criticisms  of  a  critic's 
critics.  The  first  is  part  of  the  task  of  him 
who  would  write  a  book  in  which  all  Chester- 

80 


CRITIC    OF   LARGE   THINGS 

ton's  works  are  duly  and  fitly  considered  ;  and 
the  second  will  not  be  wholly  escaped  by  him. 
Concerned  as  we  are,  however,  with  the  ideas 
of  one  who  was  far  more  interested  in  putting 
the  world  to  rights  than  with  guiding  men  and 
women  around  literary  edifices,  there  is  no 
need  for  us  to  give  any  very  detailed  study  to 
Chesterton's  critical  work.  Bacon  said  "  dis- 
tilled books  are  like  common  distilled  waters, 
flashy  things."  A  second  distillation,  perhaps 
even  a  third,  suggests  a  Euclidean  flatness. 
The  sheer  management  of  a  point  of  view, 
however,  is  always  instructive.  We  have  seen 
an  author  use  his  exceptional  powers  of  criti- 
cism upon  society  in  general,  and  ideas  at 
large.  How  is  he  able  to  deal  with  ideas  and 
inventions  stated  in  a  more  definite  and  par- 
ticular manner  ?  The  latter  task  is  the  more 
difficult  of  the  two.  We  all  know  perfectly 
well,  to  take  an  analogous  illustration,  how 
to  deal  with  the  Prussian  militarist  class,  the 
"  Junker  caste,"  and  so  on.  But  we  differ 
hopelessly  on  the  treatment  to  be  meted  out 
to  the  National  Service  League. 

The  outstanding  feature  of  Chesterton's 
critical  work  is  that  it  has  no  outstanding 
features  which  differentiate  it  from  his  other 
writings.  He  is  always  the  journalist,  writing 
for  the  day  only.  This  leads  him  to  treat  all 
F  81 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

his  subjects  with  special  reference  to  his  own 
day.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  essay  on  Byron  in 
Twelve  Types,  his  own  day  is  so  much  under 
discussion  that  poor  Byron  is  left  out  in  the 
cold  to  warm  himself  before  a  feebly  flickering 
epigram.  In  writing  of  Dickens,  Chesterton 
says  that  he  "  can  be  criticized  as  a  contem- 
porary of  Bernard  Shaw  or  Anatole  France  or 
C.  F.  G.  Masterman  ...  his  name  comes  to 
the  tongue  when  we  are  talking  of  Christian 
Socialists  or  Mr.  Roosevelt  or  County  Council 
Steamboats  or  Guilds  of  Play."  And  Chester- 
ton does  criticize  Dickens  as  the  contemporary 
of  all  these  phenomena.  In  point  of  fact, 
to  G.K.C.  everybody  is  either  a  contemporary 
or  a  Victorian,  and  "  I  also  was  born  a  Vic- 
torian." Little  Dorrit  sets  him  talking  about 
Gissing,  Hard  Times  suggests  Herbert  Spencer, 
American  Notes  leads  to  the  mention  of  Maxim 
Gorky,  and  elsewhere  Mr.  George  Moore  and 
Mr.  William  Le  Queux  are  brought  in.  If 
Chesterton  happened  to  be  writing  about 
Dickens  at  a  time  when  there  was  a  certain 
amount  of  feeling  about  on  the  subject  of  rich 
Jews  on  the  Rand,  then  the  rich  Jews  on  the 
Rand  would  appear  in  print  forthwith,  whether 
or  not  Dickens  had  ever  depicted  a  rich  Jew 
or  the  Rand,  or  the  two  in  conjunction. 
Chesterton's  first  critical  work  of  importance 

82 


CRITIC    OF    LARGE   THINGS 

was  Robert  Browning  in  the  "  English  Men  of 
Letters  Series."  It  might  be  imagined  that 
the  austere  editorship  of  Lord  Morley  might 
have  a  dejom^nahzing  effect  upon  the  style 
of  the  author.  Far  otherwise.  The  t's  are 
crossed  and  the  i's  are  dotted,  so  to  speak, 
more  carefully  in  Robert  Browning  than  in 
works  less  fastidiously  edited,  but  that  is  all. 
The  book  contains  references  to  Gladstone 
and  Home  Rule,  Parnell,  Pigott,  and  Rud- 
yard  Kipling,  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  W.  E. 
Henley,  and  the  Tivoli.  But  of  Browning's 
literary  ancestors  and  predecessors  there  is 
little  mention. 

It  is  conventional  to  shed  tears  of  ink  over 
the  journalistic  touch,  on  the  ground  that  it 
must  inevitably  shorten  the  life  of  whatever 
book  bears  its  marks.  If  there  is  anything  in 
this  condemnation,  then  Chesterton  is  doomed 
to  forgetfulness,  and  his  critical  works  will  be 
the  first  to  slip  into  oblivion,  such  being  the 
nature  of  critical  works  in  general.  But  if 
this  condemnation  holds  true,  it  includes  also 
Macaulay,  R.  L.  Stevenson,  Matthew  Arnold, 
and  how  many  others  !  The  journalistic  touch, 
when  it  is  good,  means  the  preservation  of  a 
work.  And  Chesterton  has  that  most  essential 
part  of  a  critic's  mental  equipment — what  we 
call   in   an   inadequately   descriptive  manner, 

83 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

insight.  He  was  no  mean  critic,  whatever  the 
tricks  he  played,  who  could  pen  these  judg- 
ments : 

The  dominant  passion  of  the  artistic  Celt,  such  as 
Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats  or  Sir  Edward  Burne-Jones,  lies  in 
the  word  "  escape "  ;  escape  into  a  land  where 
oranges  grow  on  plum  trees  and  men  can  sow  what 
they  like  and  reap  what  they  enjoy,    {G.  F.  Watts.) 

The  supreme  and  most  practical  value  of  poetry 
is  this,  that  in  poetry,  as  in  music,  a  note  is  struck 
which  expresses  beyond  the  power  of  rational  state- 
ment a  condition  of  mind,  and  all  actions  arise  from 
a  condition  of  mind.    {Robert  Browning.) 

This  essential  comedy  of  Johnson's  character  is  one 
which  has  never,  oddly  enough,  been  put  upon  the 
stage.  There  was  in  his  nature  one  of  the  unconscious 
and  even  agreeable  contradictions  loved  by  the  true 
comedian.  ...  I  mean  a  strenuous  and  sincere 
belief  in  convention,  combined  with  a  huge  natural 
inaptitude  for  observing  it.    {Samuel  Johnson.) 

Rossetti  could,  for  once  in  a  way,  write  poetry 
about  a  real  woman  and  call  her  "  Jenny."  One  has  a 
disturbed  suspicion  that  Morris  would  have  called  her 
"  Jehanne."    {The  Victorian  Age  in  Literature.) 

These  are  a  few  samples  collected  at  random, 
but  they  alone  are  almost  sufficient  to  enthrone 
Chesterton  among  the  critics.  He  has  a  won- 
derful intuitive  gift  of  feeling  for  the  right 
metaphor,  for  the  material  object  that  best 
symbolizes  an  impression.     But  one  thing  he 

84 


CRITIC    OF   LARGE    THINGS 

lacks.  Put  him  among  authors  whose  view 
of  the  universe  is  opposed  to  his  own,  and 
Chesterton  instantly  adopts  an  insecticide  atti- 
tude. The  wit  of  Wilde  moves  him  not,  but 
his  morals  stir  him  profoundly  ;  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy  is  "  a  sort  of  village  atheist  brooding 
and  blaspheming  over  the  village  idiot."  Only 
occasionally  has  he  a  good  word  to  say  for  the 
technique  of  an  author  whose  views  he  dis- 
likes. His  critical  work  very  largely  consists 
of  an  attempt  to  describe  his  subjects'  views 
of  the  universe,  and  bring  them  into  relation 
with  his  own.  His  two  books  on  Charles 
Dickens  are  little  more  than  such  an  attempt. 
When,  a  few  years  ago,  Mr.  Edwin  Pugh,  who 
had  also  been  studying  the  "  aspects "  of 
Dickens,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
novelist  was  a  Socialist,  Chesterton  waxed 
exceeding  wrath  and  gave  the  offending  book 
a  severe  wigging  in  The  Daily  News. 

He  loves  a  good  fighter,  however,  and  to 
such  he  is  always  just.  There  are  few  philoso- 
phies so  radically  opposed  to  the  whole  spirit 
of  Chesterton's  beliefs  as  that  of  John  Stuart 
Mill.  On  religion,  economic  doctrine,  and 
woman  suffrage.  Mill  held  views  that  are 
offensive  to  G.K.C.  But  Mill  is  nevertheless 
invariably  treated  by  him  with  a  respect  which 
approximates    to    reverence.      The    principal 

85 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

case  in  point,  however,  is  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw, 
who  holds  all  Mill's  beliefs,  and  waves  them 
about  even  more  defiantly.  G.K.C.'s  admira- 
tion in  this  case  led  him  to  write  a  whole  book 
about  G.B.S.  in  addition  to  innumerable 
articles  and  references.  The  book  has  the 
following  characteristic  introduction  : 

Most  people  either  say  that  they  agree  with 
Bernard  Shaw  or  that  they  do  not  understand  him. 
I  am  the  only  person  who  understands  him,  and  I  do 
not  agree  with  him. 

Chesterton,  of  course,  could  not  possibly 
agree  with  such  an  avowed  and  utter  Puritan 
as  Mr.  Shaw.  The  Puritan  has  to  be  a  revolu- 
tionary, which  means  a  man  who  pushes  for- 
ward the  hand  of  the  clock.  Chesterton,  as 
near  as  may  be,  is  a  Catholic  Tory,  who  is  a 
man  who  pushes  back  the  hand  of  the  clock.  ( 
Superficially,  the  two  make  the  clock  show  the 
same  hour,  but  actually,  one  puts  it  on  to  a.m., 
the  other  back  to  p.m.  Between  the  two  is  all 
the  difference  that  is  between  darkness  and 
day. 

Chesterton's  point  of  view  is  distinctly  like 
Samuel  Johnson's  in  more  respects  than  one. 
Both  critics  made  great  play  with  dogmatic 
assertions  based  on  the  literature  that  was 
before  their  time,  at  the  expense  of  the  litera- 
ture that  was  to  come  after.     In  the  book  on 

86 


CRITIC    OF    LARGE    THINGS 

Shaw,  Chesterton  strikes  a  blow  at  all  inno- 
vators, although  he  aims  only  at  the  obvious 
failures. 

The  truth  is  that  all  feeble  spirits  naturally  live  in 
the  future,  because  it  is  featureless  ;  it  is  a  soft  job  ; 
'  you  can  make  it  what  you  like.  The  next  age  is  blank, 
and  I  can  paint  it  freely  with  my  favourite  colour. 
It  requires  real  courage  to  face  the  past,  because  the 
past  is  full  of  facts  which  cannot  be  got  over  ;  of 
men  certainly  wiser  than  w^e  and  of  things  done  which 
we  cannot  do.  I  know  I  cannot  write  a  poem  as  good 
as  Lycidas.  But  it  is  always  easy  to  say  that  the 
particular  sort  of  poetry  I  can  write  will  be  the  poetry 
of  the  future. 

Sentiments  such  as  these  have  made  many 
young  experimentalists  feel  that  Chesterton  is 
;a  traitor  to  his  youth  and  generation.  Nobody 
will  ever  have  the  detachment  necessary  to 
appreciate  "  futurist  "  poetry  until  it  is  very 
much  a  thing  of  the  past,  because  the  near  past 
is  so  much  with  us,  and  it  is  part  of  us,  which 
the  future  is  not.  But  fidelity  to  the  good 
things  of  the  past  does  not  exonerate  us 
from  the  task  of  looking  for  the  germs  of 
the  good  things  of  the  future.  The  young 
poet  of  to-day  sits  at  the  feet  of  Sir 
Henry  Newbolt,  whose  critical  appreciation 
is  undaunted  by  mere  dread  of  new  things, 
while  to  the  same  youth  and  to  his  friends  it 
has  simply  never  occurred,  often  enough,  to 

87 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

think  of  Chesterton  as  a  critic.  It  cannot  be 
too  strongly  urged  that  an  undue  admiration 
of  the  distant  past  has  sat  Hke  an  incubus 
upon  the  chest  of  European  Hterature,  and 
Shakespeare's  greatness  is  not  in  spite  of  his 
"  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,"  which  probably 
contributed  to  it  indirectly.  Had  Shakespeare 
been  a  classical  scholar,  he  would  almost  cer- 
tainly have  modelled  his  plays  on  Seneca  or 
Aeschylus,  and  the  results  would  have  been 
devastating.  Addison's  Cato,  Johnson's  Irene, 
and  the  dramas  of  Racine  and  Corneille  are 
among  the  abysmal  dullnesses  mankind  owes 
to  its  excessive  estimation  of  the  past.  Men 
have  always  been  too  ready  to  forget  that  we 
inherit  our  ancestors'  bad  points  as  well  as 
their  good  ones.  Ancestor-worship  has  de- 
prived the  Chinese  of  the  capacity  to  create, 
it  has  seriously  affected  Chesterton's  power  to 
criticize.  Chesterton's  own  generation  has 
seen  both  the  victory  and  the  downfall  of 
form  in  the  novels  of  Mr.  Galsworthy  and 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells.  It  has  witnessed  fascinating 
experiments  in  stagecraft,  some  of  which  have 
assuredly  succeeded.  It  has  listened  to  new 
poets  and  wandered  in  enchanted  worlds  where 
no  Victorians  trod.  A  critic  in  sympathy  with 
these  efforts  at  reform  would  have  written  the 
last-quoted  passage  something  like  this  : 

88 


CRITIC    OF    LARGE    THINGS 

"  The  truth  is  that  all  feeble  spirits  natur- 
ally live  in  the  past,  because  it  has  no  boun- 
daries ;  it  is  a  soft  job  ;  you  can  find  in  it 
what  you  like.  The  past  ages  are  rank,  and  I 
can  daub  myself  freely  with  whatever  colours 
I  extract.  It  requires  no  courage  to  face  the 
past,  because  the  past  is  full  of  facts  which 
neutralize  one  another  ;  of  men  certainly  no 
wiser  than  we,  and  of  things  done  which  we 
could  not  want  to  do.  I  know  I  cannot  write 
a  poem  as  good  as  Lycidas.  But  I  also  know 
that  Milton  could  not  write  a  poem  as  good  as 
The  Hound  of  Heaven  or  M'Andrew's  Hymn. 
And  it  is  always  easy  to  say  that  the  particular 
kind  of  poetry  I  can  write  has  been  the  poetry 
of  some  period  of  the  past." 

But  Chesterton  didn't;  quite  the  reverse. 

So  that  one  comes  to  the  sorrowful  conclu- 
sion that  Chesterton  is  at  his  best,  as  a  critic, 
when  he  is  writing  introductions,  because  then 
he  has  to  leave  the  past  alone.  When  he  is 
writing  an  introduction  to  one  of  the  works 
of  a  great  Victorian  (Dickens  always  excepted) 
he  makes  his  subject  stand  out  like  a  solitary 
giant,  not  necessarily  because  he  is  one,  but 
on  account  of  the  largeness  of  the  contours, 
the  rough  shaping,  and  the  deliberate  con- 
trasts. He  has  written  prefaces  without  num- 
ber, and  the  British  Museum  has  not  a  complete 

89 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

set  of  the  books  introduced  by  him.  The 
Fables  of  ^sop,  the  Book  of  Job,  Matthew 
Arnold's  Critical  Essays,  a  book  of  children's 
poems  by  Margaret  Arndt,  Boswell's  Johnson, 
a  novel  by  Gorky,  selections  from  Thackeray, 
a  life  of  Mr.  Will  Crooks,  and  an  anthology  by 
young  poets  are  but  a  few  of  the  books  he  has 
explained. 

The  last  thing  to  be  said  on  Chesterton  as 
a  critic  is  by  way  of  illustration.  For  a  series 
of  books  on  artists,  he  wrote  two,  on  William 
Blake  and  G.  F.  Watts.  The  first  is  all  about 
mysticism,  and  so  is  the  second.  They  are 
for  the  layman,  not  for  the  artist.  They  could 
be  read  with  interest  and  joy  by  the  colour- 
blind. And,  incidentally,  they  are  extremely 
good  criticism.  Therein  is  the  triumph  of 
Chesterton.  Give  him  a  subject  which  he  can 
relate  with  his  own  view  of  the  universe,  and 
space  wherein  to  accomplish  this  feat,  and  he 
will  succeed  in  presenting  his  readers  with  a 
vividly  outlined  portrait,  tinted,  of  course, 
with  his  own  personality,  but  indisputably 
true  to  life,  and  ornamented  with  fascinating 
little  gargoyles.  But  put  him  among  the 
bourgeoisie  of  literature  and  he  will  sulk  like 
an  angry  child. 


90 


V 

THE 
HUMORIST    AND    THE    POET 

There  are  innumerable  books — or  let  us  say 
twenty — on  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw.  They  deal 
with  him  as  a  sociologist,  a  dramatist,  or  what 
not,  but  never  as  a  humorist.  There  is  a 
mass  of  books  on  Oscar  Wilde,  and  they  deal 
with  everything  concerned  with  him,  except 
his  humour.  The  great  humorists — as  such — 
go  unsung  to  their  graves.  That  is  because 
there  is  nothing  so  obvious  as  a  joke,  and 
nothing  so  difficult  to  explain.  It  requires  a 
psychologist,  like  William  James,  or  a  phil- 
osopher, like  Bergson,  to  explain  what  a  joke 
is,  and  then  most  of  us  cannot  understand  the 
explanation.  A  joke — especially  another  man's 
joke — is  a  thing  to  be  handled  delicately  and 
reverently,  for  once  the  bloom  is  off,  the  joke 
mysteriously  shrivels  and  vanishes.  Trans- 
lators are  the  sworn  enemies  of  jokes  ;  the 
exigencies  of  their  deplorable  trade  cause  them 
to  maul  the  poor  little  things  about  while  they 

91 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

are  putting  them  into  new  clothes,  and  the 
result  is  death,  or  at  the  least  an  appearance 
of  vacuous  senescence.    But  jokes  are  only  the 
crystallization  of  humour ;    it  exists  also  in 
less  tangible  forms,  such  as  style  and  all  that 
collection  of  effects  vaguely  lumped  together 
and  called  "  atmosphere."    Chesterton's  pecu- 
liar "  atmosphere  "  rises  like  a  sweet  exhala- 
tion from  the  very  ink  he  sheds.     And  it  is 
frankly  indefinable,  as  all  genuine  style  is.    The 
insincere  stylists  can  be  reduced  to  a  formula, 
because  they  work  from  a  formula  ;  Pater  may 
be  brought  down  to  an  arrangement  of  adjec- 
tives and  commas,  Doctor  Johnson  to  a  suc- 
cession of  rhythms,  carefully  pruned  of  excres- 
cences, and  so  on,  but  the  stylist  who  writes 
as  God  made  him  defies  such  analysis.    Meredith 
and  Shaw  and  Chesterton  will  remain  mysteries 
even  unto  the  latest  research  student  of  the 
Universities    of   Jena   and    Chicago.     Patient 
students  (something  of  the  sort  is  already  being 
done)  will  count  up  the  number  of  nouns  and 
verbs  and  commas  in  The  Napoleon  of  Notting 
Hill  and  will  express  the  result  in  such  a  form 
as  this — 

Chesterton  (G.  K.)=#=?|^:  +  ^TiiSiM-^ 

But  they  will  fail  to  touch  the  essential  Ches- 

92 


HUMORIST   AND   POET 

terton,  because  one  of  the  beauties  of  this 
form  of  analysis  is  that  when  the  formula  has 
been  obtained,  nobody  is  any  the  wiser  as  to 
the  manner  of  its  use.  We  know  that  James 
Smith  is  composed  of  beef  and  beer  and  bread, 
because  all  evidence  goes  to  show  that  these  are 
the  only  things  he  ever  absorbs,  but  nobody 
has  ever  suggested  that  a  synthesis  of  food- 
stuffs will  ever  give  us  James  Smith. 

Now  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  the 
humour  of  Chesterton  is  that,  in  doing  so,  one 
is  compelled  to  handle  it,  to  its  detriment. 
If  in  the  chapter  on  his  Romances  any  reader 
thought  he  detected  the  voice  and  the  style  of 
Chesterton,  he  is  grievously  mistaken.  He 
only  saw  the  scaffolding,  which  bears  the  same 
relation  to  the  finished  product  as  the  skeleton 
bears  to  the  human  body. 

Consider  these  things : 

If  you  throw  one  bomb  you  are  only  a  murderer ; 
but  if  you  keep  on  persistently  throwing  bombs,  you 
are  in  awful  danger  of  at  last  becoming  a  prig. 

If  we  all  floated  in  the  air  like  bubbles,  free  to  drift 
anywhere  at  any  instant,  the  practical  result  would  be 
that  no  one  would  have  the  courage  to  begin  a  con- 
versation. 

If  the  public  schools  stuck  up  a  notice  it  ought  to 
be  inscribed,  "  For  the  Fathers  of  Gentlemen  only." 
In  two  generations  they  can  do  the  trick. 

93 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Now  these  propositions  are  not  merely 
snippets  from  a  system  of  philosophy,  pre- 
sented after  the  manner  of  the  admirers  of 
Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche.  These  are  quota- 
tions which  display  a  quite  exceptional  power 
of  surprising  people.  The  anticlimaxes  of  the 
first  two  passages,  the  bold  dip  into  the  future 
at  the  expense  of  the  past  in  the  third  are 
more  than  instances  of  mere  verbal  felicity. 
They  indicate  a  writer  capable  of  the  humour 
which  feeds  upon  daily  life,  and  is  therefore 
thoroughly  democratic  and  healthy.  For  there 
are  two  sorts  of  humour ;  that  which  feeds  upon 
its  possessor,  Oscar  Wilde  is  the  supreme  ex- 
ample of  this  type  of  humorist,  and  that  which 
draws  its  inspiration  from  its  surroundings, 
of  which  the  great  exemplar  is  Dickens,  and 
Chesterton  is  his  follower.  The  first  exhausts 
itself  sooner  or  later,  because  it  feeds  on  its 
own  blood,  the  second  is  inexhaustible.  This 
theory  may  be  opposed  on  the  ground  that 
humour  is  both  internal  and  external  in  its 
origin.  The  supporters  of  this  claim  are 
invited  to  take  a  holiday  in  bed,  or  elsewhere 
away  from  the  madding  crowd,  and  then  see 
how  humorous  they  can  be. 

Humour  has  an  unfortunate  tendency  to 
stale.  The  joke  of  yesteryear  already  shows 
frays  upon  its  sleeves.     The  wit  of  the  early 

94 


HUMORIST    AND    POET 

volumes  of  Punch  is  in  the  last  stages  of 
decrepitude.  Watch  an  actor  struggling  to 
conceal  from  his  audience  the  fact  that  he  is 
repeating  one  of  Shakespeare's  puns.  We 
tolerate  the  humour  of  Congreve,  not  because 
it  is  thoroughly  amusing,  but  because  it  has 
survived  better  than  most.  Humorous  verse 
stands  a  slightly  better  chance  of  evoking 
smiles  in  its  old  age.  There  is  always  its  un- 
alterable verbal  neatness  ;  tradition,  too,  lin- 
gers more  lovingly  around  fair  shapes,  and  a 
poem  is  a  better  instance  of  form  than  a  para- 
graph. Mankind  may  grow  blase,  if  it  will, 
but  as  a  poet  of  the  comic,  Chesterton  will 
live  long  years.  Take  for  example  that  last 
and  worst  of  his  novels  The  Flying  Inn.  Into 
this  he  has  pitched  with  a  fascinating  reckless- 
ness a  quantity  of  poems,  garnered  from  The 
New  Witness  and  worthy  of  the  immortality 
which  is  granted  the  few  really  good  comic 
poems.  There  is  the  poem  of  Noah,  with  that 
stimulating  line  with  which  each  stanza  ends. 
The  last  one  goes  : 

But  Noah  he  sinned,  and  we  have  sinned  ;  on  tipsy  feet 
we  trod, 

Till  a  great  big  black  teetotaller  was  sent  to  us  for  a  rod, 

And  you  can't  get  wine  at  a  P.S.A.,  or  Chapel,  or  Eistedd- 
fod ; 

For  the  Curse  of  Water  has  come  again  because  of  the 
wrath  of  God. 

95 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

And  water  is  on  the  Bishop's  board,  and  the  Higher 

Thinker's  shrine, 
But  I  don't  care  where  the  water  goes  if  it  doesn't  get 

into  the  wine. 

There  is  a  lunatic  song  against  grocers,  who 
are  accused  of  nonconformity,  and  an  equally 
lunatic  song  in  several  instalments  on  being 
a  vegetarian  : 

I  am  silent  in  the  Chib, 

I  am  silent  in  the  pub, 
I  am  silent  on  a  bally  peak  in  Darien  ; 

For  I  stuff  away  for  life 

Shoving  peas  in  with  a  knife. 
Because  I  am  at  heart  a  vegetarian. 

There  is  a  joyous  thing  about  a  millionaire 
who  lived  the  simple  life,  and  a  new  version  of 
"St.  George  for  Merry  England."  Tea,  cocoa, 
and  soda-water  are  the  subjects  of  another 
poem.  The  verses  about  Roundabout  are  very 
happy  : 

Some  say  that  when  Sir  Lancelot 
Went  forth  to  find  the  Grail, 
Grey  Merlin  wrinkled  up  the  roads, 
For  hope  that  he  should  fail  ; 
All  roads  led  back  to  Lyonnesse 
And  Camelot  in  the  Vale, 
I  cannot  yield  assent  to  this 
Extravagant  hypothesis, 
The  plain  shrewd  Briton  will  dismiss 
Such  rumours  {Daily  Mail). 

96 


HUMORIST    AND   POET 

But  in  the  streets  of  Roundabout 
Are  no  such  factions  found, 
Or  theories  to  expound  about 
Or  roll  upon  the  ground  about, 
In  the  happy  town  of  Roundabout, 
That  makes  the  world  go  round. 

And  there  are  lots  more  like  this. 

Then  there  are  the  Ballades  Urbane  which 
appeared  in  the  early  volumes  of  The  Eye- 
witness. They  have  refrains  with  the  true 
human  note.  Such  as  "  But  will  you  lend  me 
two-and-six  ?  " 

Envoi 

Prince,  I  will  not  be  knighted  !    No  ! 

Put  up  your  sword  and  stow  your  tricks  ! 

Offering  the  Garter  is  no  go — 

BUT  WILL  YOU  LEND  ME  TWO-AND-SIX  ? 

In  prose  Chesterton  is  seldom  the  mere  jester  ; 
he  will  always  have  a  moral  or  two,  at  the 
very  least,  at  his  fingers'  ends,  or  to  be  quite 
exact,  at  the  end  of  his  article.  He  is  never 
quite  irresponsible.  He  seldom  laughs  at  a 
man  who  is  not  a  reformer. 

Or  let  us  take  another  set  of  illustrations, 
this  time  in  prose.  (Once  more  I  protest  that 
I  shall  not  take  the  reader  through  all  the 
works  of  Chesterton.)  I  mean  the  articles 
"  Our  Note  Book  "  which  he  contributed  to 
The  Illustrated  London  News.  They  are  of  a 
G  97 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

familiar  type  ;  a  series  of  paragraphs  on  some 
topical  subject,  with  little  spaces  between 
them  in  order  to  encourage  the  weary  reader. 
Chesterton  wrote  this  class  of  article  supremely 
well.  He  would  seize  on  something  apparently 
trivial,  and  exalt  it  into  a  symptom.  When  he 
had  given  the  disease  a  name,  he  went  for  the 
quack  doctors  who  professed  to  remedy  it. 
He  goes  to  Letchworth,  in  which  abode  of 
middle-class  faddery  he  finds  a  teetotal  public- 
house,  pretending  to  look  like  the  real  thing, 
and  calhng  itself  "The  Skittles  Inn."  He 
immediately  raises  the  question,  Can  we  dis- 
sociate beer  from  skittles  ?  Then  he  widens 
out  his  thesis. 

Our  life  to-day  is  marked  by  perpetual  attempts 
to  revive  old-fashioned  things  while  omitting  the 
human  soul  in  them  that  made  them  more  than 
fashions. 

And  he  concludes  : 

I  welcome  a  return  to  the  rudeness  of  old  times  ; 
when  Luther  attacked  Henry  VIII  for  being  fat ; 
and  when  Milton  and  his  Dutch  opponent  devoted 
pages  of  their  controversy  to  the  discussion  of  which 
of  them  was  the  uglier.  .  .  .  The  new  controversial- 
ists .  .  .  call  a  man  a  physical  degenerate,  instead  of 
calling  him  an  ugly  fellow.  They  say  that  red  hair 
is  the  mark  of  the  Celtic  stock,  instead  of  calling  him 
"  Carrots." 

.     98 


HUMORIST    AND    POET 

Of  this  class  of  fun  Chesterton  is  an  easy- 
master.  It  makes  him  a  fearsome  contro- 
versiahst  on  the  platform  or  in  his  favourite 
lists,  the  columns  of  a  newspaper.  But  he 
uses  his  strength  a  httle  tyrannously.  He  is 
an  adept  at  begging  the  question.  The  lost 
art  called  ignoratio  elenchi  has  been  privately 
rediscovered  by  him,  to  the  surprise  of  many 
excellent  and  honest  debaters,  who  have  never 
succeeded  in  scoring  the  most  obvious  points 
in  the  face  of  Chesterton's  power  of  emitting 
a  string  of  epigrams  and  pretending  it  is  a 
chain  of  argument.  The  case,  in  whatever 
form  it  is  put,  is  always  fresh  and  vigorous. 
Another  epigrammatist,  Oscar  Wilde,  in  com- 
parison with  him  may  be  said  to  have  used 
the  midnight  oil  so  liberally  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  his  witticisms,  that  one  might  almost 
detect  the  fishy  odour.  But  as  with  his  prose 
so  with  his  verses;  Chesterton's  productions 
are  so  fresh  that  they  seem  to  spring  from  his 
vitality  rather  than  his  intellect.  They  are 
generally  a  trifle  ragged  and  unpolished  as  if, 
Hke  all  their  author's  productions,  they  were 
strangers  to  revision.  And  vitality  demands 
boisterous  movement,  more  even  than  coher- 
ence. Sometimes  the  boisterousness  is  ap- 
parently unsupported  by  the  sense  of  the 
words. 

99 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

So  you  have  gained  the  golden  crowns  and  grasped  the 
golden  weather, 
The  kingdoms  and  the  hemispheres  that  all  men  buy 
and  sell, 
But  I  will  lash  the  leaping  drum  and  swing  the  flaring 
feather, 
For  the  light  of  seven  heavens  that  are  lost  to  me  like 
hell. 

Here  the  stanza  actually  goes  with  such  a 
swing  that  the  reader  will  in  all  probability 
not  notice  that  the  lines  have  no  particular 
meaning. 

On  the  other  hand,  Chesterton's  poetry  has 
exuberant  moments  of  sheer  delight.  In  one 
of  his  essays  he  is  lamenting  the  songlessness 
of  modern  life  and  suggests  one  or  two  chanties. 
Here  they  are  ; 
Chorus  of  Bank  Clerks  : 

Up,  my  lads,  and  lift  the  ledgers,  sleep  and  ease  are  o'er. 
Hear  the  Stars  of  Morning  shouting  :    "  Two  and  Two 
are  Four." 
Though  the  creeds  and  realms  are  reeling,  though  the 
sophists  roar. 
Though  we  weep  and  pawn  our  watches,  Two  and  Two 
are  Four. 

Chorus  of  Bank  Clerks  when  there  is  a  run  on 
the  bank  : 

There's  a  run  upon  the  Bank — 

Stand  away  ! 
For  the  Manager's  a  crank  and  the  Secretary  drank,  and 
the  Upper  Tooting  Bank 
Turns  to  bay  ! 

100 


HUMORIST    AND    POET 

Stand  close  :   there  is  a  run 

On  the  Bank. 
Of  our  ship,  our  royal  one,  let  the  ringing  legend  run, 
that  she  fired  with  every  gun 

Ere  she  sank. 

The  Post  Office  Hymn  would  begin  as  follows  : 

O'er  London  our  letters  are  shaken  like  snow, 
Our  wires  o'er  the  world  like  the  thunderbolts  go. 
The  news  that  may  marry  a  maiden  in  Sark, 
Or  kill  an  old  lady  in  Finsbury  Park. 

Chorus  (with  a  swing  of  joy  and  energy)  : 
Or  kill  an  old  lady  in  Finsbury  Park. 

The  joke  becomes  simply  immense  when  we 

picture  the  actual  singing  of  the  songs. 

But  that  is  not  the  only  class  of  humour  of 

which  Chesterton  is  capable.     He  can  cut  as 

well  as  hack.    It  is  to  be  doubted  whether  any 

politician   was   ever   addressed   in  lines   more 

sarcastic  than  those  of  Antichrist,  an  ode  to 

Mr.  F.  E.  Smith.     This  gentleman,  speaking 

on  the  Welsh  Disestablishment  Bill,  remarked 

that  it  "  has  shocked  the  conscience  of  every 

Christian  community  in  Europe."    It  begins  : 

Are  they  clinging  to  their  crosses, 

F.  E.  Smith. 
Where  the  Breton  boat-fleet  tosses, 

Are  they,  Smith  ? 
Do  they,  fasting,  tramping,  bleeding. 
Wait  the  news  from  this  our  city  ? 
Groaning  "  That's  the  Second  Reading  !  " 
Hissing  "  There  is  still  Committee  !  " 

101 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

If  the  voice  of  Cecil  falters, 

If  McKenna's  point  has  pith, 
Do  they  tremble  for  their  altars  ? 

Do  they,  Smith  ? 

Then  in  Russia,  among  the  peasants, 

Where  Establishment  means  nothing 
And  they  never  heard  of  Wales, 

Do  they  read  it  all  in  Hansard 
With  a  crib  to  read  it  with — 

"  Welsh  Tithes  :  Dr.  Clifford  answered." 
Really,  Smith  ? 

The  final  verse  is  : 

It  would  greatly,  I  must  own. 

Soothe  me.  Smith, 
If  you  left  this  theme  alone. 

Holy  Smith  ! 
For  your  legal  cause  or  civil 

You  fight  well  and  get  your  fee  ; 
For  your  God  or  dream  or  devil 

You  will  answer,  not  to  me. 
Talk  about  the  pews  and  steeples 

And  the  Cash  that  goes  therewith  ! 
But  the  souls  of  Christian  peoples  .  .  . 
— Chuck  it,  Smith  ! 

The  wilting  sarcasm  of  this  poem  is  a  feature 
which  puts  it  with  a  few  others  apart  from  the 
bulk  of  Chesterton's  poems.  Even  as  bellicosity 
and  orthodoxy  are  two  of  the  brightest  threads 
which  run  through  the  whole  texture  of  his 
work,  so  Poems  of  Pugnacity  (as  Ella  Wheeler 
Wilcox  would  say)  and  religious  verses  consti- 
tute the  largest  part  of  the  poetic  works  of 

102 


HUMORIST    AND    POET 

G.K.C.  His  first  book  of  verses — after  Grey- 
beards at  Play — The  Wild  Knight  contained  a 
bloodthirsty  poem  about  the  Battle  of  Gibeon, 
written  with  strict  adhesion  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Old  Testament.  It  might  have  been  penned 
by  a  survivor,  glutted  with  blood  and  duly 
grateful  to  the  God  of  his  race  for  the  solar  and 
lunar  eccentricities  which  made  possible  the 
extermination  of  the  five  kings  of  the  Amorites. 
In  1911  came  The  Ballad  of  the  White  Horse, 
which  is  all  about  Alfred,  according  to  the 
popular  traditions  embodied  in  the  elementary 
history  books,  and,  in  particular,  the  Battle 
of  Ethandune.  How  Chesterton  revels  in  that 
Homeric  slaughter !  The  words  blood  and 
bloody  punctuate  the  largest  poem  of  G.K.C. 
to  the  virtual  obliteration  in  our  memory  of 
the  fine  imagery,  the  occasional  tendernesses, 
and  the  blustering  aggressiveness  of  some  of 
the  metaphors  and  similes.  Not  many  men 
would  have  the  nerve,  let  alone  the  skill,  to 
write  ; 

And  in  the  last  eclipse  the  sea 

Shall  stand  up  like  a  tower, 
Above  all  moons  made  dark  and  riven. 
Hold  up  its  foaming  head  in  heaven, 

And  laugh,  knowing  its  hour. 

But,  at  the  same  time,  this  poem  contains  very 
touching  and  beautiful  lines.     The  Ballad  of 

103 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

the  White  Horse  is  an  epic  of  the  struggle 
between  Christian  and  Pagan.  One  of  the 
essentials  of  an  epic  is  that  its  men  should  be 
decent  men,  if  they  cannot  be  heroes.  The 
Iliad  would  have  been  impossible  if  it  had 
occurred  to  Homer  to  introduce  the  Govern- 
ment contractors  to  the  belligerent  powers. 
All  the  point  would  have  gone  out  of  Orlando 
Furioso  if  it  had  been  the  case  that  the  madness 
of  Orlando  was  the  delirium  tremens  of  an 
habitual  drunkard.  Chesterton  recognizing 
this  truth  makes  the  pagans  of  the  White 
Horse  behave  like  gentlemen.  There  is  a 
beautiful  little  song  put  into  the  mouth  of  one 
of  them,  which  is  in  its  way  a  perfect  expres- 
sion of  the  inadequacy  of  false  gods. 

There  is  always  a  thing  forgotten 

When  all  the  world  goes  well ; 
A  thing  forgotten,  as  long  ago 
When  the  gods  forgot  the  mistletoe. 
And  soundless  as  an  arrow  of  snow 

The  arrow  of  anguish  fell. 

The  thing  on  the  blind  side  of  the  heart. 

On  the  wrong  side  of  the  door, 
The  green  plant  groweth,  menacing 
Almighty  lovers  in  the  spring  ; 
There  is  always  a  forgotten  thing, 

And  love  is  not  secure. 

The  sorrow  behind  these  lines  is  more  mov- 
104 


HUMORIST    AND    POET 

ing,  because  more  sincere,  than  the  lines  of 
that  over-quoted  verse  of  Swinburne's  : 

From  too  much  love  of  living, 
From  hope  and  fear  set  free. 
We  thank  with  brief  thanksgiving 
Whatever  gods  there  be — 
That  no  life  lives  for  ever, 
That  dead  men  rise  up  never, 
That  even  the  weariest  river 
Winds  somewhere  safe  to  sea. 

This  is  insincere,  because  a  pagan  (as  Swin- 
burne was)  could  have  committed  suicide  had 
he  really  felt  these  things.  Swinburne,  like 
most  modern  pagans,  really  hated  priestcraft 
when  he  thought  he  was  hating  God.  Ches- 
terton's note  is  truer.  He  knows  that  the 
pagan  has  all  the  good  things  of  life  but  one, 
and  that  only  an  exceptionally  nice  pagan 
knows  he  lacks  that  much. 

And  so  one  might  go  on  mining  the  White 
Horse,  for  it  contains  most  things,  as  a  good 
epic  should.  Two  short  stanzas,  however, 
should  be  quoted,  whatever  else  is  omitted, 
for  the  sake  of  their  essential  Christianity, 
their  claim  that  a  man  may  make  a  fool  of 
himself  for  Christ's  sake,  whatever  the  bishops 
have  to  say  about  it. 

The  men  of  the  East  may  spell  the  stars, 

And  times  and  triumphs  mark, 
But  the  men  signed  of  the  Cross  of  Christ 

Go  gaily  in  the  dark. 

105 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

The  men  of  the  East  may  search  the  scrolls 

For  sure  fates  and  fame, 
But  the  men  that  drink  the  blood  of  God 

Go  singing  to  their  shame. 

In  his  last  volume  of  Poems  (1915)  Chester- 
ton presents  us  with  a  varied  collection  of 
works,  written  at  any  time  during  the  last 
twelve  or  so  years.  The  pugnacious  element 
is  present  in  Lepanto,  through  the  staccato 
syllables  of  which  we  hear  drum-taps  and  men 
cheering.  There  is  a  temptation  to  treat 
Lepanto,  and  indeed  most  of  Chesterton's 
poems,  with  special  reference  to  their  tech- 
nique, but  we  must  resist  this  temptation,  with 
tears  if  need  be,  and  with  prayer,  for  to  give 
way  to  it  would  be  to  commit  a  form  of  vivi- 
section. G.K.C.  is  not  a  text,  praise  be,  and 
whether  he  lives  or  dies,  long  may  he  be  spared 
the  hands  of  an  editor  or  interpreter  who  is 
also  an  irrepressible  authority  on  anapaests 
and  suchlike  things.  He  is  a  poet,  and  a  con- 
siderable poet,  not  because  of  his  strict  atten- 
tion to  the  rules  of  prosody,  but  because  he 
cannot  help  himself,  and  the  rules  in  question 
are  for  the  persons  who  can,  the  poets  by 
deliberate  intention,  the  writers  who  polish 
unceasingly.  Chesterton  has  more  impulse 
than  finish,  but  he  has  natural  gifts  of  rhythm 
and  the  effective  use  of  words  which  more  or 

106 


HUMORIST    AND    POET 

less  (according  to  the  reader's  taste)  compen- 
sate for  his  refusal  or  his  incapacity  to  take 
pains. 

Finally  there  are  the  religious  poems.  From 
these  we  can  best  judge  the  reality  of  Chester- 
ton's poetic  impulse,  for  here,  knowing  that 
affectation  would  be  almost  indecent,  he  has 
expressed  what  he  had  to  express  with  a  care 
denied  to  most  of  his  other  works.  In  one  of 
his  essays,  G.K.C.  exults  in  that  matchless 
phrase  of  Vaughan,  "  high  humility."  He  has 
both  adopted  and  adapted  this  quality,  and 
the  results  are  wonderful.  In  The  Wise  Men 
occurs  this  stanza  : 

The  Child  that  was  ©re  worlds  begun 

(.  .  .  We  need  but  walk  a  little  way. 
We  need  but  see  a  latch  undone  .  .  .) 
The  Child  that  played  with  moon  and  sun 
Is  playing  with  a  little  hay. 

The  superb  antithesis  leaves  one  struggling 
against  that  involuntary  little  gasp  which  is 
a  reader's  first  tribute  to  a  fine  thought.  He 
could  be  a  great  hymn  writer,  if  he  would. 
One  of  his  poems,  in  fact,  has  found  its  way 
into  The  English  Hymnal,  where  it  competes 
(if  one  may  use  the  word  of  a  sacred  song) 
with  Recessional  for  the  favour  of  congr  ga- 
tions.  If  we  take  a  glance  at  a  few  of  the  rnest 
hymns,  we  shall  find  that  they  share  certain 

107 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

obvious  qualities  :  bold  imagery,  the  vocabu- 
lary of  conflict,  an  attitude  of  humility  that 
is  very  nearly  also  one  of  great  pride,  and 
certain  tricks  of  style.  And  when  we  look 
through  Chesterton's  poems  generally,  we  shall 
find  that  these  are  exactly  the  qualities  they 
possess. 


108 


VI 

THE 
RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

In  his  book  on  William  Blake,  Chesterton  says 
that  he  is  "  personally  quite  convinced  that  if 
every  human  being  lived  a  thousand  years, 
every  human  being  would  end  up  either  in 
utter  pessimistic  scepticism  or  in  the  Catholic 
creed."  In  course  of  time,  in  fact,  everybody 
would  have  to  decide  whether  they  preferred 
to  be  an  intellectualist  or  a  mystic.  A  debauch 
of  intellectualism,  lasting  perhaps  nine  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years,  is  a  truly  terrible  thing 
to  contemplate.  Perhaps  it  is  safest  to  assert 
that  if  our  lives  were  considerably  lengthened, 
there  would  be  more  mystics  and  more  mad- 
men. 

To  Chesterton  modern  thought  is  merely 
the  polite  description  of  a  noisy  crowd  of 
persons  proclaiming  that  something  or  other 
is  wrong.  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  denounces  meat 
and  has  been  understood  to  denounce  marriage. 
Ibsen  is  said  to   have  anathematized  almost 

109 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

everything  (by  those  who  have  not  read  his 
works).  Mr.  MacCabe  and  Mr.  Blatchford 
think  that,  on  the  whole,  there  is  no  God,  and 
Tolstoy  told  us  that  nearly  everything  we  did, 
and  quite  all  we  wanted  to  do,  was  opposed 
to  the  spirit  of  Christ's  teaching.  Auberon 
Herbert  disapproved  of  law,  and  John  David- 
son disapproved  of  life.  Herbert  Spencer 
objected  to  government,  Passive  Resisters  to 
State  education,  and  various  educational  re- 
formers to  education  of  any  description.  There 
are  people  who  would  abolish  our  spelling,  our 
clothing,  our  food  and,  most  emphatically, 
our  drink.  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  adds  the  finishing 
touch  to  this  volume  of  denials,  by  blandly 
suggesting  in  an  appendix  to  his  Modern 
Utopia,  headed  "Scepticism  of  the  Instrument," 
that  our  senses  are  so  liable  to  err,  that  we  can 
never  be  really  sure  of  anything  at  all.  This 
spirit  of  denial  is  extraordinarily  infectious. 
A  man  begins  to  suspect  what  he  calls  the 
"  supernatural."  He  joins  an  ethical  society, 
and  before  he  knows  where  he  is,  he  is  a  vege- 
tarian. The  rebellious  moderns  have  a  curious 
tendency  to  flock  together  in  self-defence,  even 
when  they  have  nothing  in  common.  The 
mere  aggregation  of  denials  rather  attracts 
the  slovenly  and  the  unattached.  The  lack 
of  positive  dogma  expressed  by  such  a  coalition 

110 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

encourages  the  sceptic  and  the  uneducated, 
who  do  not  reahze  that  the  dehberate  suppres- 
sion of  dogma  is  itself  a  dogma  of  extreme 
arrogance.  We  trust  too  much  to  the  label, 
nowadays,  and  the  brief  descriptions  we  attach 
to  ourselves  have  a  gradually  increasing  con- 
notation. In  politics  for  example,  the  con- 
servative creed,  which  originally  contained 
the  single  article  that  aristocracy,  wealth  and 
government  should  be  in  the  same  few  hands, 
now  also  implies  adhesion  to  the  economic 
doctrine  of  protection,  and  the  political  doc- 
trine that  unitary  government  is  preferable  to 
federal.  The  liberal  creed,  based  principally 
upon  opposition  to  the  conservative,  and  to  a 
lesser  degree  upon  disrespect  for  the  Estab- 
lished Church,  has  been  enlarged  concurrently 
with  the  latter.  The  average  liberal  or  con- 
servative now  feels  himself  in  honour  bound 
to  assert  or  to  deny  political  dogmas  out  of 
sheer  loyalty  to  his  party.  This  does  not  make 
for  sanity.  The  only  political  creed  in  which 
a  man  may  reasonably  expect  to  remain  sane 
is  Socialism,  which  is  catholic  and  not  the 
least  dependent  upon  other  beliefs.  Apart 
from  the  inconsiderable  number  of  Socialists, 
the  average  politician  follows  in  the  footsteps 
of  those  gentlemen  already  mentioned.  He  is 
not  allowed  to  believe,  so  he  contents  himself 

111 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

with  a  denial  of  the  other  side's  promises.  As- 
sertion is  infinitely  more  brain-wearing  than 
denial. 

Side  by  side  with  the  increase  in  those  who 
deny  is  a  growth  in  the  numbers  of  those  who 
come  to  regard  apathy,  suspended  judgment, 
or  a  lack  of  interest  in  a  religious  matter  as  a 
state  of  positive  belief.  There  are  agnostics 
quite  literally  all  over  the  place.  Belief  peters 
down  into  acceptance,  acceptance  becomes  a 
probability,  a  probability  declines  into  a  reason- 
able doubt,  and  a  reasonable  doubt  drifts  into 
"  it  is  highly  conjectural  and  indeed  extremely 
unlikely,"  or  something  of  that  sort.  Tolerance 
was  once  an  instrument  for  ensuring  that  truth 
should  not  be  suppressed  ;  it  is  now  an  excuse 
for  refusing  to  bother.  There  is,  in  fact,  a 
growing  disrespect  for  truth.  A  great  many 
men  went  to  the  stake  years  ago  rather  than 
admit  the  possibility  that  they  were  wrong  ; 
they  protested,  so  far  as  human  endurance 
allowed  them  to  protest,  that  they  were 
orthodox  and  that  their  persecutors,  and  not 
they,  were  the  heretics.  To-day  a  bunch  of 
Cambridge  men  calls  itself  "  The  Heretics  " 
and  imagines  it  has  found  a  clever  title.  At 
the  same  time  there  is  an  apparent  decline  in 
the  power  to  believe.  The  average  politician 
(the  principal  type  of  twentieth-century  propa- 

112 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

gandist)  hardly  ever  makes  a  speech  which 
does  not  contain  one  at  least  of  the  following 
phrases  : 

"  I  may  be  mistaken,  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  .  .  ." 

"  We  are  all  subject  to  correction,  but  as 
far  as  we  know  .  .  ." 

"  In  this  necessarily  imperfect  world  ..." 

"  So  far  as  one  is  able  to  judge  ..." 

"  Appearances  are  notoriously  deceptive, 
but  .  .  ." 

"  Human  experience  is  necessarily  limited 
to  .  .  ." 

"  We  can  never  be  really  sure  ..." 

"  Pilate  asked,  '  What  is  truth  ?  '  Ah,  my 
brethren,  what  indeed  ?  " 

"  The  best  minds  of  the  country  have  failed 
to  come  to  an  agreement  on  this  question; 
one  can  only  surmise  ..." 

"  Art  is  long  and  life  is  short.  Art  to-day 
is  even  longer  than  it  used  to  be." 

Now  the  politician,  to  do  him  justice,  has 
retained  the  courage  of  his  convictions  to  a 
greater  extent  than  the  orthodox  believer  in 
God.  Men  are  still  prepared  to  make  Home 
Rule  the  occasion  of  bloodshed,  or  to  spend 
the  midnight  hours  denouncing  apparent  politi- 
H  113 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

cal  heresies.  But  whereas  the  poUtician,  hke 
the  orthodox  behever  once  pronounced  apolo- 
getics, they  now  merely  utter  apologies.  To- 
day, equipped  as  never  before  with  the  heavy 
artillery  of  argument  in  the  shape  of  Higher 
Criticism,  research,  blue-books,  statistics,  cheap 
publications,  free  libraries,  accessible  informa- 
tion, public  lectures,  and  goodness  only  knows 
what  else,  the  fighting  forces  of  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  decencies  lie  drowsing  as  in  a 
club-room,  placarded  "  ReHgion  and  politics 
must  not  be  discussed  here." 

All  this,  with  the  exception  of  the  political 
references,  is  a  summary  of  Chesterton's  claim 
that  a  return  to  orthodoxy  is  desirable  and 
necessary.  It  will  be  found  at  length  in  Heretics 
and  in  the  first  chapters  of  Orthodoxy,  and 
sprinkled  throughout  all  his  writings  of  a  later 
date  than  1906  or  so.  He  protests  on  more 
than  one  occasion  against  Mr.  Shaw's  epigram, 
which  seems  to  him  to  contain  the  essence  of 
all  that  is  wrong  to-day,  "  The  golden  rule 
is  that  there  is  no  golden  rule."  Chesterton 
insists  that  there  is  a  golden  rule,  that  it  is  a 
very  old  one,  and  that  it  is  known  to  a  great 
many  people,  most  of  whom  belong  to  the 
working  classes. 

In  his  argument  that,  on  the  whole,  the 
masses  are  (or  were)  right  about  religion,  and 

114 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

that  the  intellectuals  are  wrong,  Chesterton  is 
undoubtedly  at  his  most  bellicose  and  his 
sincerest.  His  is  the  pugnacity  that  prefers  to 
pull  down  another's  banner  rather  than  to 
raise  his  own.  His  "  defences  "  in  The  Defen- 
dant, and  the  six  hundred  odd  cases  made  out 
by  him  in  the  columns  of  The  Daily  News  are 
largely  and  obviously  inspired  by  the  wish, 
metaphorically  speaking,  to  punch  somebody's 
head.  The  fact  that  he  is  not  a  mere  bully 
appears  in  the  appeal  to  common  decency 
which  Chesterton  would  be  incapable  of  omit- 
ting from  an  article.  Nevertheless  he  prefers 
attack  to  defence.  In  war,  the  offensive  is 
infinitely  more  costly  than  the  defensive. 
But  in  controversy  this  is  reversed.  The 
opener  of  a  debate  is  in  a  much  more  difficult 
position  than  his  opponent.  The  latter  need 
only  criticize  the  former's  case ;  he  is  ot 
compelled  to  disclose  his  own  defences.  Ches- 
terton used  to  have  a  grand  time  hoisting 
people  on  their  own  petards,  and  letting  forth 
strings  of  epigrams  at  the  expense  of  those 
from  whom  he  differed,  and  only  incidentally 
revealing  his  own  position.  Then,  as  he  tells 
us  in  the  preface  to  Orthodoxy,  when  he  had 
published  the  saltatory  series  of  indictments 
entitled  Heretics,  a  number  of  his  critics  said, 
in  effect,   "  Please,  Mr.  Chesterton,  what  are 

115 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

we  to  believe  ?  "  Mr.  G.  S.  Street,  in  particu- 
lar, begged  for  enlightenment.  G.K.C.  joy- 
ously accepted  the  invitation,  and  wrote  Ortho- 
doxy, his  most  brilliant  book. 

There  are  few  works  in  the  English  language 
the  brilliancy  of  which  is  so  sustained.  Ortho- 
doxy is  a  rapid  torrent  of  epigrammatically 
expressed  arguments.  Chesterton's  method 
in  writing  it  is  that  of  the  digger  wasp.  This 
intelligent  creature  carries  on  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  controversy  by  paralyzing  its  oppo- 
nent first,  and  then  proceeding  to  lay  the 
eggs  from  which  future  fitness  will  proceed  in 
the  unresisting  but  still  living  body.  Chester- 
ton begins  by  paralyzing  his  reader,  by 
savagely  attacking  all  the  beliefs  which  the 
latter,  if  he  be  a  modern  and  a  sceptic,  prob- 
ably regards  as  first  principles.  Tolerance  is 
dismissed,  as  we  have  just  seen,  as  a  mere 
excuse  for  not  caring.  Reason,  that  awful 
French  goddess,  is  shown  to  be  another 
apology.  Nietzsche  and  various  other  authors 
to  whom  some  of  us  have  bent  the  knee  are 
slaughtered  without  misery.  Then  Chesterton 
proceeds  to  the  argument,  the  reader  being  by 
this  time  receptive  enough  to  swallow  a 
camel,  on  the  sole  condition  that  G.K.C.  has 
previously  slightly  treacled  the  animal. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  assert 
116 


RELIGION    OF   A   DEBATER 

that  at  this  point  Chesterton  pretends  to 
begin  his  argument.  As  a  matter  of  strict  fact 
he  only  describes  his  adventures  in  Fairyland, 
which  is  all  the  earth.  He  tells  us  of  his 
profound  astonishment  at  the  consistent  re- 
currence of  apples  on  apple  trees,  and  at  the 
general  jolliness  of  the  earth.  He  describes, 
very  beautifully,  some  of  the  sensations  of 
childhood  making  the  all-embracing  discovery 
that  things  are  what  they  seem,  and  the  even 
more  joyful  feeling  of  pretending  that  they  are 
not,  or  that  they  will  cease  to  be  at  any 
moment.  A  young  kitten  will  watch  a  large 
cushion,  which  to  it  is  a  very  considerable 
portion  of  the  universe,  flying  at  it  without 
indicating  any  very  appreciable  surprise.  A 
child,  in  the  same  way,  would  not  be  surprised 
if  his  house  suddenly  developed  wings  and 
flew  away.  Chesterton  cultivated  this  attitude 
of  always  expecting  to  be  surprised  by  the 
most  natural  things  in  the  world,  until  it 
became  an  obsession,  and  a  part  of  his  journal- 
istic equipment.  In  a  sense  Chesterton  is  the 
everlasting  boy,  the  Undergraduate  Who 
Would  Not  Grow  Up.  There  must  be  few 
normally  imaginative  town-bred  children  to 
whom  the  pointed  upright  area-railings  do  not 
appear  an  unsearchable  armoury  of  spears  or 
as  walls  of  protective  flames,  temporarily  frozen 

117 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

black  so  that  people  should  be  able  to  enter 
and  leave  their  house.  Every  child  knows  that 
the  old  Norse  story  of  a  sleeping  Brunnhilde 
encircled  by  flames  is  true  ;  to  him  or  her, 
there  is  a  Brunnhilde  in  every  street,  and  the 
child  knows  that  there  it  always  has  a  chance 
of  being  the  chosen  Siegfried.  But  because 
this  view  of  life  is  so  much  cosier  than  that  of 
the  grown-ups,  Chesterton  clings  to  his  child- 
hood's neat  little  universe  and  weeps  patheti- 
cally when  anybody  mentions  Herbert  Spencer, 
and  makes  faces  when  he  hears  the  word 
Newton.  He  insists  on  a  fair  dole  of  surprises. 
"  Children  are  grateful  when  Santa  Claus  puts 
in  their  stockings  gifts  of  toys  and  sweets. 
Could  I  not  be  grateful  to  Santa  Claus  when 
he  put  in  my  stockings  the  gift  of  two  miracu- 
lous legs  ?  " 

Now  this  fairyland  business  is  frankly  over- 
done. Chesterton  conceives  of  God,  having 
carried  the  Creation  as  far  as  this  world,  sitting 
down  to  look  at  the  new  universe  in  a  sort  of 
ecstasy.  "  And  God  saw  every  thing  that  he 
had  made,  and,  behold  it  was  very  good."  He 
enjoyed  His  new  toy  immensely,  and  as  He 
sent  the  earth  spinning  round  the  sun,  His 
pleasure  increased.  So  He  said  "  Do  it  again  " 
every  time  the  sun  had  completed  its  course, 
and  laughed  prodigiously,  and  behaved  like  a 

118 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

happy  child.  And  so  He  has  gone  on  to  this 
day  saying  "  Do  it  again  "  to  the  sun  and  the 
moon  and  the  stars,  to  the  animal  creation, 
and  the  trees,  and  every  living  thing.  So 
Chesterton  pictures  God,  giving  His  name  to 
what  others,  including  Christians,  call  natural 
law,  or  the  laws  of  God,  or  the  laws  of  gravita- 
tion, conservation  of  energy,  and  so  on,  but 
always  laws.  For  which  reason,  one  is  com- 
pelled to  assume  that  in  his  opinion  God 
is  now  [1915]  saying  to  Himself,  "  There's 
another  bloody  war,  do  it  again,  sun,"  and 
gurgling  with  delight.  It  is  dangerous  to 
wander  in  fairyland,  as  Chesterton  has  him- 
self demonstrated,  "  one  might  meet  a  fairy." 
It  is  not  safe  to  try  to  look  God  in  the  face. 
A  prophet  in  Israel  saw  the  glory  of  Jehovah, 
and  though  He  was  but  the  God  of  a  small 
nation,  the  prophet's  face  shone,  and,  so  great 
was  the  vitality  he  absorbed  from  the  great 
Source  that  he  "was  an  hundred  and  twenty 
years  old  when  he  died :  his  eye  was  not  dim, 
nor  his  natural  force  abated."  That  is  the 
reverent  Hebrew  manner  of  conveying  the 
glory  of  God.  But  Chesterton,  cheerfully 
playing  toss  halfpenny  among  the  fairies,  sees 
an  idiot  child,  and  calls  it  God. 

Fortunately  for  the   argument,    Chesterton 
has  no  more  to  say  about  his  excursion  in 

119 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Fairyland  after  his  return.  He  goes  on  to 
talk  about  the  substitutes  which  people  have 
invented  for  Christianity.  The  Inner  Light 
theory  has  vitriol  sprayed  upon  it.  Marcus 
Aurelius,  it  is  explained,  acted  according  to 
the  Inner  Light.  "  He  gets  up  early  in  the 
morning,  just  as  our  own  aristocrats  leading 
the  Simple  Life  get  up  early  in  the  morning ; 
because  such  altruism  is  much  easier  than 
stopping  the  games  in  the  amphitheatre  or 
giving  the  English  people  back  their  land." 
The  present  writer  does  not  profess  any 
ability  to  handle  philosophic  problems  philo- 
sophically ;  it  seems  to  him,  however,  that 
if  Chesterton  had  been  writing  a  few  years 
later,  he  would  have  attempted  to  extinguish 
the  latest  form  of  the  Inner  Light,  that 
"  intuition  "  which  has  been  so  much  asso- 
ciated with  M.  Bergson's  teachings. 

The  Inner  Light  is  finally  polished  off  as 
follows  : 

Of  all  conceivable  forms  of  enlightenment  the  worst 
is  what  these  people  call  the  Inner  Light.  Of  all 
horrible  religions  the  most  horrible  is  the  worship 
of  the  god  within.  Any  one  who  knows  anybody 
knows  how  it  would  work  ;  anybody  who  knows  any 
one  from  the  Higher  Thought  Centre  knows  how  it 
does  work.  That  Jones  should  worship  the  god 
within  him  turns  out  ultimately  to  mean  that  Jones 
shall  worship  Jones.  .  .  .  Christianity  came  into  the 

120 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

world  firstly  in  order  to  assert  with  violence  that  a  man 
has  not  only  to  look  inwards,  but  to  look  outwards, 
to  behold  with  astonishment  and  enthusiasm  a  divine 
company  and  a  divine  captain. 

Continuing  his  spiritual  autobiography, 
Chesterton  describes  his  gradual  emergence 
from  the  wonted  agnosticism  of  sixteen  through 
the  mediumship  of  agnostic  literature.  Once 
again  that  remark  of  Bacon's  showed  itself 
to  be  true,  "  A  little  philosophy  inclineth 
man's  mind  to  atheism,  but  depth  in  philo- 
sophy bringeth  men's  minds  about  to  religion." 
A  man  may  read  Huxley  and  Bradlaugh,  who 
knew  their  minds,  and  call  himself  an  agnostic. 
But  when  it  comes  to  reading  their  followers, 
there's  another  story  to  tell.  What  especially 
struck  Chesterton  was  the  wholesale  self- 
contradictoriness  of  the  literature  of  agnos- 
ticism. One  man  would  say  that  Christianity 
was  so  harmful  that  extermination  was  the 
least  that  could  be  desired  for  it,  and  another 
would  insist  that  it  had  reached  a  harmless 
and  doddering  old  age.  A  writer  would  assert 
that  Christianity  was  a  religion  of  wrath  and 
blood,  and  would  point  to  the  Inquisition,  and 
to  the  religious  wars  which  have  at  one  time 
or  another  swept  over  the  civilized  world. 
But  by  the  time  the  reader's  blood  was  up,  he 
would  come  across  some  virile  atheist's  pro- 

121 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

clamation  of  the  feeble,  mattoid  character  of 
the  rehgion  in  question,  as  illustrated  by  its 
quietist  saints,  the  Quakers,  the  Tolstoyans, 
and  non-resisters  in  general.  When  he  had 
cooled  down,  he  would  run  into  a  denunciation 
of  the  asceticism  of  Christianity,  the  monastic 
system,  hair-shirts,  and  so  on.  Then  he  would 
come  across  a  sweeping  condemnation  of  its 
sensual  luxuriousness,  its  bejewelled  chalices, 
its  pompous  rituals,  the  extravagance  of  its 
archbishops,  and  the  like.  Christianity  "  was 
abused  for  being  too  plain  and  for  being  too 
coloured."  And  then  the  sudden  obvious  truth 
burst  upon  Chesterton,  What  if  Christianity 
was  the  happy  mean  ? 

Perhaps,  after  all,  it  is  Christianity  that  is  sane 
and  all  its  critics  that  are  mad — in  various  ways. 
I  tested  this  idea  by  asking  myself  whether  there 
was  about  any  of  the  accusers  anything  morbid  that 
might  explain  the  accusation.  I  was  startled  to  find 
that  this  key  fitted  a  lock.  For  instance,  it  was 
certainly  odd  that  the  modern  world  charged  Christi- 
anity at  once  with  bodily  austerity  and  with  artistic 
pomp.  But  then  it  was  also  odd,  very  odd,  that  the 
modern  world  itself  combined  extreme  bodily  luxury 
with  an  extreme  absence  of  artistic  pomp.  The  modern 
man  thought  Becket's  robes  too  rich  and  his  meals 
too  poor.  But  then  the  modern  man  was  really 
exceptional  in  history.  No  man  before  ever  ate  such 
elaborate  dinners  in  such  ugly  clothes.  The  modern 
man   found   the   church   too  simple   exactly   where 

122 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

modern  life  is  too  complex  ;  he  found  the  church  too 
gorgeous  exactly  where  modern  life  is  too  dingy.  The 
man  who  disliked  the  plain  fasts  and  feasts  was  mad 
on  entrees.  The  man  who  disliked  vestments  wore 
a  pair  of  preposterous  trousers.  And  surely  if  there 
was  any  insanity  involved  in  the  matter  at  all  it  was 
in  the  trousers,  not  in  the  simply  falling  robe.  If 
there  was  any  insanity  at  all,  it  was  in  the  extravagant 
entrees,  not  in  the  bread  and  wine. 

Nevertheless,  Christianity  was  centrifugal 
rather  than  centripetal ;  it  was  not  a  mere 
average,  but  a  centre  of  gravity;  not  a  com- 
promise, but  a  conflict.  Christ  was  not  half- 
God  and  half-man,  like  Hercules,  but  "  perfect 
God  and  perfect  man."  Man  was  not  only 
the  highest,  but  also  the  lowest.  "  The 
Church  was  positive  on  both  points.  One  can 
hardly  think  too  little  of  one's  self.  One  can 
hardly  think  too  much  of  one's  soul." 

At  this  point  agreement  with  Mr.  Chesterton 
becomes  difficult.  Christianity,  he  tells  us, 
comes  in  with  a  flaming  sword  and  performs 
neat  acts  of  bisection.  It  separates  the  sinner 
from  the  sin,  and  tells  us  to  love  the  former 
and  hate  the  latter.  He  also  tells  us  that  no 
pagan  would  have  thought  of  this.  Leaving 
aside  the  question  whether  or  not  Plato  was 
a  Christian,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  whereas 
Chesterton  condemns  Tolstoyanism  whenever 
he  recognizes  it,  he  here  proclaims  Tolstoy's 

123 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

doctrine.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  mild 
perverseness  of  the  chapter  on  The  Paradoxes 
of  Christianity  leaves  its  major  implications 
safe.  It  does  not  matter  greatly  whether  we 
prefer  to  regard  Christianity  as  a  centre  of 
gravity,  or  a  point  of  balance.  We  need  only 
pause  to  note  Chesterton  personifies  this 
dualism.  The  Napoleon  of  Netting  Hill  is  the 
arrangement  of  little  bits  of  iron — the  inhabi- 
tants of  London,  in  this  case — around  the  two 
poles  of  a  fantastic  magnet,  of  which  one  is 
Adam  Wayne,  the  fanatic,  and  the  other, 
Auberon  Quin,  the  humorist.  In  The  Ball  and 
the  Cross  the  diagram  is  repeated.  James 
Turnbull,  the  atheist,  and  Evan  Maclan,  the 
believer,  are  the  two  poles.  We  speak  in  a 
loose  sort  of  way  of  opposite  poles  when  we 
wish  to  express  separation.  But,  in  point  of 
fact,  they  symbolize  connection  far  more 
exactly.  They  are  absolutely  interdependent. 
The  whole  essence  of  a  North  and  a  South  Pole 
is  that  we,  knowing  where  one  is,  should  be 
able  to  say  where  the  other  is.  Nobody  has 
ever  suggested  a  universe  in  which  the  North 
Pole  wandered  about  at  large.  This  is  the 
idea  which  Chesterton  seems  to  have  captured 
and  introduced  into  his  definition  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

Democracy,    to    Chesterton,    is    the    theory 
124 


RELIGION    OF    A   DEBATER 

that  one  man  is  as  good  as  another  ;  Chris- 
tianity, he  finds,  is  the  virtual  sanctification 
by  supernatural  authority  of  democracy.  He 
points  out  the  incompatibility  of  political 
democracy,  for  example,  with  the  determinism 
to  which  Mr.  Blatchford's  logical  atheism  has 
brought  him.  If  man  is  the  creature  of  his 
heredity  and  his  environment,  as  Mr.  Blatch- 
ford  asserts,  and  if  a  slum-bred  heredity  and 
a  slum  environment  do  not  make  for  high 
intelligence,  then  obviously  it  is  against  the 
best  interests  of  the  State  to  allow  the  slum 
inhabitant  to  vote.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
entirely  to  the  best  interests  of  the  State  to 
entrust  its  affairs  to  the  aristocracy,  whose 
breeding  and  environment  gives  it  an  enor- 
mous amount  of  intelligence.  Christianity,  by 
proclaiming  that  every  man's  body  is  the 
temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  insists  both  upon 
the  necessity  of  abolishing  the  slums  and  of 
honouring  the  slum-dwellers  as  sharers  with 
the  rest  of  humanity  in  a  common  sonship. 
This  is  the  case  for  Socialism,  it  may  be  pointed 
out  parenthetically,  and  Chesterton  has  let  it 
slip  past  him.  He  insists  that  orthodoxy  is 
the  best  conceivable  guardian  of  liberty,  for 
the  somewhat  far-fetched  reason  that  no 
believer  in  miracles  would  have  such  "  a 
deep  and  sincere  faith  in  the  incurable  routine 

125 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

of  the  cosmos  "  as  to  cling  to  the  theory  that 
men  should  not  have  the  liberty  to  work 
changes.  If  a  man  believed  in  the  freedom  of 
God,  in  fact,  he  would  have  to  believe  in  the 
freedom  of  man.  The  obvious  answer  to 
which  is  that  he  generally  doesn't.  Christianity 
made  for  eternal  vigilance,  Chesterton  main- 
tains, whereas  Buddhism  kept  its  eye  on  the 
Inner  Light — which  means,  in  fact,  kept  it 
shut.  In  proof,  or  at  least  in  confirmation  of 
this,  he  points  to  the  statues  of  Christian 
saints  and  of  the  Buddha.  The  former  keep 
their  eyes  open  wide,  the  latter  keep  their 
eyes  firmly  closed.  Vigilance,  however,  does 
not  always  make  for  liberty — the  vigilance 
of  the  Inquisition,  for  example.  Leaving  out 
of  account  this  and  other  monstrous  excep- 
tions, we  might  say  spiritual  liberty,  perhaps, 
but  not  political  liberty,  not,  at  any  rate,  since 
the  days  of  Macchiavclli,  and  the  divorce  of 
Church  and  State. 

By  insisting  specially  on  the  immanence  of  God 
we  get  introspection,  self-isolation,  quietism,  social 
indifference — Tibet.  By  insisting  specially  on  the 
transcendence  of  God  we  get  wonder,  curiosity,  moral 
and  political  adventure,  religious  indignation — Chris- 
tendom. Insisting  that  God  is  inside  man,  man 
is  always  inside  himself.  By  insisting  that  God 
transcends  man,  man  has  transcended  himself. 

126 


RELIGION    OF    A   DEBATER 

In  concluding  the  book,  Chesterton  joyously 
refutes  a  few  anti-Christian  arguments  by 
means  of  his  extraordinary  knack  of  seeing 
the  large  and  obvious,  and  therefore  generally 
overlooked  things.  He  believes  in  Christianity 
because  he  is  a  rationalist,  and  the  evidence 
in  its  favour  has  convinced  him.  The  argu- 
ments with  which  he  deals  are  these.  That 
men  are  much  like  beasts,  and  probably 
related  to  them.  Answer  :  yes,  but  men 
are  also  quite  wonderfully  unlike  them  in 
many  important  respects.  That  primeval 
religion  arose  in  ignorance  and  fear.  Answer  : 
we  know  nothing  about  prehistoric  man, 
because  he  was  prehistoric,  therefore  we  can- 
not say  where  he  got  his  religion  from.  But 
"  the  whole  human  race  has  a  tradition  of  the 
Fall."  And  so  on  :  the  argument  that  Christ 
was  a  poor  sheepish  and  ineffectual  professor 
of  a  quiet  life  is  answered  by  the  flaming 
energy  of  His  earthly  mission  ;  the  suggestion 
that  Christianity  belongs  to  the  Dark  Ages 
is  countered  by  the  historical  fact  that  it 
"  was  the  one  path  across  the  Dark  Ages 
that  was  not  dark."  It  was  the  path  that 
led  from  Roman  to  modern  civilization,  and 
we  are  here  because  of  it.  And  the  book 
ends  with  a  peroration  that  might  be  likened 
to   a   torrent,    were   it   not   for   the   fact   that 

127 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

torrents  are  generally  narrow  and  shallow. 
It  is  a  most  remarkable  exhibition  of  energy, 
a  case  from  which  flippancies  and  irrelevancies 
have  been  removed,  and  where  the  central 
conviction  advances  irresistibly.  Elsewhere 
in  the  book  Chesterton  had  been  inconsequent, 
darting  from  point  to  point,  lunging  at  an 
opponent  one  moment,  formulating  a  theory 
in  the  next,  and  producing  an  effect  which,  if 
judged  by  sample,  would  be  considered  bizarre 
and  undirected.  The  book  contains  a  few 
perversities,  of  course.  The  author  attempts 
to  rebut  the  idea  "  that  priests  have  blighted 
societies  with  bitterness  and  gloom,"  by  point- 
ing out  that  in  one  or  two  priest-ridden 
countries  wine  and  song  and  dance  abound. 
Yes,  but  if  people  are  jollier  in  France  and 
Spain  and  Italy  than  in  savage  Africa,  it  is 
due  not  to  the  priests  so  much  as  to  the 
climate  which  makes  wine  cheap  and  an 
open-air  life  possible.  No  amount  of  priests 
would  be  able  to  set  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Belgian  Congo  dancing  around  a  maypole 
singing  the  while  glad  songs  handed  down  by 
their  fathers.  No  amount  of  priests  would  be 
able  to  make  the  festive  Eskimo  bask  in  the 
sun  and  sing  in  chorus  when  there  wasn't  any 
sun  and  it  was  altogether  too  cold  to  open 
their  mouths  wide  in  the  open  air.    In  fact  the 

128 


RELIGION    OF    A   DEBATER 

priests  are  not  the  cause  of  the  bhght  where 
it  exists,  just  as  they  are  not  the  cause  of  the 
joUiness,  when  there  is  any.  But  Orthodoxy  is 
Chesterton's  sincerest  book.  It  is  perhaps  the 
only  one  of  the  whole  lot  in  the  course  of  which 
he  would  not  be  justified  in  repeating  a  remark 
which  begins  one  of  the  Tremendous  Trifles, 
"  Every  now  and  then  I  have  introduced  into 
my  essays  an  element  of  truth." 

Twice  upon  a  time  there  was  a  Samuel 
Butler  who  wrote  exhilaratingly  and  died  and 
left  the  paradoxical  contents  of  his  notebooks 
to  be  published  by  posterity.  The  first  (i.e.  of 
Hudibras,  not  of  Erewhon)  had  many  lively 
things  to  say  on  the  question  of  orthodoxy, 
being  the  forerunner  of  G.K.C.  And  I  am 
greatly  tempted  to  treat  Samuel  Butler  as  an 
ancestor  to  be  described  at  length.  Chesterton 
might  well  have  said,  "  It  is  a  dangerous  thing 
to  be  too  inquisitive,  and  search  too  narrowly 
into  a  true  Religion,  for  50,000  Bethshemites 
were  destroyed  only  for  looking  into  the  Ark 
of  the  Covenant,  and  ten  times  as  many  have 
been  ruined  for  looking  too  curiously  into  that 
Booke  in  which  that  Story  is  recorded  " — in  fact 
in  Magic  he  very  nearly  did  say  the  same  thing. 
He  would  have  liked  (as  who  would  not  ?)  to 
have  been  the  author  of  the  saying  that 
"  Repentant  Teares  are  the  waters  upon  which 
I  129 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

the  Spirit  of  God  moves,"  or  that  "  There  is 
no  better  Argument  to  prove  that  the  Scriptures 
were  written  by  Divine  Inspiration,  than  that 
excellent  saying  of  our  Savior,  If  any  man 
will  go  to  Law  with  thee  for  thy  cloke,  give 
him  thy  Coate  also."  He  might  well  have 
written  dozens  of  those  puns  and  aphorisms  of 
Butler  which  an  unkind  fate  has  omitted  from 
the  things  we  read,  and  even  from  the  things 
we  quote.  But  Butler  provides  an  answer  to 
Chesterton,  for  he  was  an  intelligent  anticipa- 
tor who  foresaw  exactly  what  would  happen 
when  orthodoxy,  which  is  to  say  the  injunc- 
tion to  shout  with  the  larger  crowd,  should  be 
proclaimed  as  the  easiest  way  out  of  religious 
difficulties.  Before  a  reader  has  finally  made 
up  his  mind  on  Orthodoxy  (and  it  is  highly 
desirable  that  he  should  do  so),  let  him  con- 
sider two  little  texts  : 

"  They  that  profess  Religion  and  believe  it 
consists  in  frequenting  of  Sermons,  do,  as  if 
they  should  say  They  have  a  great  desire  to 
serve  God,  but  would  faine  be  perswaded  to  it. 
Why  should  any  man  suppose  that  he  pleases 
God  by  patiently  hearing  an  Ignorant  fellow 
render  Religion  ridiculous  ?  " 

"He  [a  Catholic]  prefers  his  Church  merely 
for  the  Antiquity  of  it,   and  cares  not  how 

130 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

sound  or  rotten  it  be,  so  it  be  but  old.  He  takes 
a  liking  to  it  as  some  do  to  old  Cheese,  only  for 
the  blue  Rottenness  of  it.  If  he  had  lived  in 
the  primitive  Times  he  had  never  been  a 
Christian ;  for  the  Antiquity  of  the  Pagan 
and  Jewish  Religion  would  have  had  the  same 
Power  over  him  against  the  Christian,  as  the 
old  Roman  has  against  the  modern  Reforma- 
tion." 

Here  we  leave  Samuel  Butler.  The  majority 
stands  the  largest  chance  of  being  right  through 
the  sheer  operation  of  the  law  of  averages. 
But  somehow  one  does  not  easily  imagine 
a  mob  passing  through  the  gate  that  is  narrow 
and  the  way  that  is  narrow.  One  prefers  to 
think  of  men  going  up  in  ones  and  twos,  perhaps 
even  in  loneliness,  and  rejoicing  at  the  strange 
miracle  of  judgment  that  all  their  friends 
should  be  assembled  at  the  journey's  end. 

But  the  final  criticism  of  Chesterton's  Ortho- 
doxy is  that  it  is  not  orthodox.  He  claims 
that  he  is  "  concerned  only  to  discuss  .  .  .  the 
central  Christian  theology  (sufficiently  sum- 
marized in  the  Apostles'  Creed)  "  and,  "  When 
the  word  '  orthodoxy  '  is  used  here  it  means 
the  Apostles'  Creed,  as  understood  by  every- 
body calling  himself  Christian  until  a  very 
short  time  ago  and  the  general  historic  con- 

131 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

duct  of  those  who  held  such  a  creed."  In  other 
words  he  counts  as  orthodox  Anghcans,  Roman 
Cathohcs,  Orthodox  Russians,  Nonconformists, 
Lutherans,  Calvinists,  and  all  manner  of  queer 
fish,  possibly  Joanna  Southcott,  Mrs.  Annie 
Besant,  and  Mrs.  Mary  Baker  Eddy.  He  might 
even,  by  stretching  a  point  or  two  (which  is 
surely  permissible  by  the  rules  of  their  game), 
rope  in  the  New  Theologians.  Now  this  may 
be  evidence  of  extraordinary  catholicity,  but 
not  of  orthodoxy.  Chesterton  stands  by  and 
applauds  the  Homoousians  scalping  the  Homoi- 
ousians,  but  he  is  apparently  willing  to  leave 
the  Anglican  and  the  Roman  Catholic  on  the 
same  plane  of  orthodoxy,  which  is  absurd.  We 
cannot  all  be  right,  even  the  Duke  in  Magic 
would  not  be  mad  enough  to  assert  that.  And 
the  average  Christian  would  absolutely  refuse 
his  adherence  to  a  statement  of  orthodoxy  that 
left  the  matter  of  supreme  spiritual  authority 
an  open  question. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  pi:actically  every 
Englishman  would  have  declared  with  some 
emphasis  that  it  lay  in  the  Pope  of  Rome.  In 
the  twentieth  century  practically  every  Eng- 
lishman would  declare  with  equal  emphasis 
that  it  did  not.  This  change  of  opinion  was 
accompanied  by  considerable  ill-feeling  on 
both  sides,  and  was,  as  it  were,  illuminated  by 

132 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

burning  martyrs.  The  men  of  both  parties 
burned  in  both  an  active  and  a  passive  sense. 
Those  charming  Tudor  sisters,  Bloody  Mary 
(as  the  AngHcans  call  her)  and  Bloody  Bess 
(as  the  Roman  Catholics  affectionately  name 
her)  left  a  large  smudge  upon  accepted  ideas 
of  orthodoxy ;  charred  human  flesh  was  a 
principal  constituent  of  it.  The  mark  remains, 
the  differences  are  far  greater,  but,  to  Chester- 
ton, both  Anglican  and  Roman  Catholic  are 
"  orthodox*"  Of  such  is  the  illimitable  ortho- 
doxy of  an  ethical  society,  or  of  a  body  of 
Theosophists  who  "  recognize  the  essential 
unity  of  all  creeds  and  religions  " — the  liars  ! 
Chesterton  tells  us  that  Messrs.  Shaw,  Kipling, 
Wells,  Ibsen  and  others  are  heretics,  because 
of  their  doctrines.  But  he  gives  us  no  idea 
whether  the  Pope  of  Rome,  who  sells  indul- 
gences, is  a  heretic.  And  as  the  Pope  is  likely 
to  outlive  Messrs.  Shaw,  etc.,  by  perhaps  a 
thousand  years,  it  is  possible  that  Chesterton 
has  been  attacking  the  ephemeral  heresies, 
while  leaving  the  major  ones  untouched.  In 
effect,  Chesterton  tells  us  no  more  than  that 
we  should  shout  with  the  largest  crowd.  But 
the  largest  crowd  prefers,  just  now,  not  to  do 
anything  so  clamorous. 

The  most  curious  feature  about  the  present 
position    of   Christianity   is   the   energy  with 

133 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

which  its  opponents  combine  to  keep  it  going. 
While  Mr.  Robert  Blatchford  continues  to 
argue  that  man's  will  is  not  free,  and  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  continues  to  maintain  that  it  is,  the 
Doctrine  of  the  Resurrection  is  safe  ;  it  is  not 
even  attacked.  But  the  net  result  of  all  those 
peculiar  modern  things  called  "  movements  " 
is  a  state  of  immobility  like  a  nicely  balanced 
tug-of-war.  Perhaps  a  Rugby  scrum  would 
make  a  better  comparison. 

The  great  and  grave  changes  in  our  political 
civilization  all  belong  to  the  early  nineteenth  century, 
not  to  the  later.  They  belong  to  the  black-and- 
white  epoch,  when  men  believed  fixedly  in  Toryism, 
in  Protestantism,  in  Calvinism,  in  Reform,  and  not 
infrequently  in  Revolution.  And  whatever  each  man 
believed  in,  he  hammered  at  steadily,  without 
scepticism  :  and  there  was  a  time  when  the  Estab- 
lished Church  might  have  fallen,  and  the  House  of 
Lords  nearly  fell.  It  was  because  Radicals  were 
wise  enough  to  be  constant  and  consistent ;  it  was 
because  Radicals  were  wise  enough  to  be  conservative. 
.  .  .  Let  beliefs  fade  fast  and  frequently  if  you  wish 
institutions  to  remain  the  same.  The  more  the  life  of 
the  mind  is  unhinged,  the  more  the  machinery  of 
matter  will  be  left  to  itself.  The  net  result  of  all  our 
political  suggestions,  Collectivism,  Tolstoyanism,  Neo- 
Feudalism,  Communism,  Anarchy,  Scientific  Bureau- 
cracy— the  plain  fruit  of  them  all  is  that  Monarchy  and 
the  House  of  Lords  will  remain.  The  net  result  of  all 
the  new  religions  will  be  that  the  Church  of  England 

134 


RELIGION    OF    A    DEBATER 

will  not  (for  heaven  knows  how  long)  be  disestablished. 
It  was  Karl  Marx,  Nietzsche,  Tolstoy,  Cunninghame 
Graham,  Bernard  Shaw,  and  Auberon  Herbert,  who 
between  them,  with  bowed,  gigantic  backs,  bore  up 
the  throne  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

It  is  on  these  grounds  that  we  must  believe 
that,  even  as  the  Church  survives,  and  pre- 
vails, in  order  to  get  a  hearing  when  the  atheist 
and  the  New  Theologian  have  finished  shout- 
ing themselves  hoarse  at  each  other,  so  must 
political  creeds  be  in  conformity  with  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church.  Such  is  the  founda- 
tion of  democracy,  according  to  Chesterton. 
Will  anybody  revise  his  political  views  on  this 
basis  ?  Probably  not.  Every  Christian  be- 
lieves that  his  political  opinions  are  thoroughly 
Christian,  and  so  entire  is  the  disrepute  into 
which  atheism  has  fallen  as  a  philosophy  of 
life,  that  a  great  many  atheists  likewise  protest 
the  entire  Christianity  of  their  politics.  We 
are  all  democrats  to-day,  in  one  sense  or 
another  ;  each  of  us  more  loosely  than  his 
neighbour.  It  is  strange  that  by  the  criterion 
of  almost  every  living  man  who  springs  to  the 
mind  as  a  representative  democrat,  Chesterton 
is  the  most  undemocratic  of  us  all.  This, 
however,  needs  a  separate  chapter  of  explana- 
tion. 


135 


VII 

THE    POLITICIAN    WHO 
COULD    NOT    TELL    THE    TIME 

Somewhere  at  the  back  of  all  Chesterton's 
political  and  religious  ideas  lies  an  ideal 
country,  a  Utopia  which  actually  existed. 
Its  name  is  the  Middle  Ages.  If  some  unem- 
ployed Higher  Critic  chose  to  undertake  the 
appalling  task  of  reading  steadily  through  all 
the  works  of  G.K.C.,  copying  out  those  pas- 
sages in  which  there  was  any  reference  to  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  result  would  be  a  description 
of  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey.  The 
inhabitants  would  be  large,  strong  Christian 
men,  and  red-haired,  womanly  women.  Their 
children  would  be  unschooled,  save  by  the 
Church.  They  would  all  live  in  houses  of  their 
own,  on  lands  belonging  to  them.  Their  faith 
would  be  one.  They  would  speak  Latin  as  a 
sort  of  Esperanto,  and  drink  enormous  quan- 
tities of  good  beer.  The  Church — but  I  have 
found  the  passage  relating  to  the  Church  : 

Religion,  the  immortal  maiden,  has  been  a  maid-of- 
all-work    as    well    as    a   servant    of   mankind.      She 

136 


THE    POLITICIAN 

provided  men  at  once  with  the  theoretic  laws  of  an 
unalterable  cosmos  ;  and  also  with  the  practical  rules 
of  the  rapid  and  thrilling  game  of  morality.  She 
taught  logic  to  the  student  and  taught  fairy  tales  to 
the  children  ;  it  was  her  business  to  confront  the 
nameless  gods  whose  fear  is  on  all  flesh,  and  also  to 
see  that  the  streets  were  spotted  with  silver  and 
scarlet,  that  there  was  a  day  for  wearing  ribbons  or  an 
hour  for  ringing  bells. 

The  inhabitants  of  this  happy  realm  would 
be  instinctively  democratic,  and  no  woman 
would  demand  a  vote  there.  They  would  have 
that  exalted  notion  of  patriotism  that  works 
outwards  from  the  village  pump  to  the  universe 
at  large.  They  would  understand  all  humanity 
because  they  understood  themselves.  They 
would  understand  themselves  because  they 
would  have  no  newspapers  to  widen  their 
interests  and  so  make  them  shallower. 

In  Magic,  as  we  have  seen,  Chesterton's 
mouthpiece,  the  Conjuror,  gave  us  to  under- 
stand that  it  was  better  to  believe  in  Apollo 
than  merely  to  disbelieve  in  God.  The  Ches- 
tertonian  Middle  Ages  are  like  Apollo  ;  they 
did  not  exist,  but  they  make  an  admirable 
myth.  For  Chesterton,  in  common  with  the 
rest  of  us,  flourishes  on  myths  like  the  green 
bay  ;  we,  however,  happen  not  to  know,  in 
most  cases,  when  our  myths  have  a  foundation. 

137 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Mankind  demands  myths — and  it  has  them. 
Some  day  a  History  of  the  World's  Myths  will 
be  compiled.  It  will  show  humanity  climbing 
perilous  peaks  in  pursuit  of  somebody's  mis- 
interpretations of  somebody  else's  books,  or 
fighting  bloodily  because  somebody  asserted 
or  denied  that  a  nation  was  the  chosen  one, 
or  invading  new  continents,  physical  or  meta- 
physical, because  of  legendary  gold  to  be 
found  therein,  or  in  fact  committing  all  its 
follies  under  the  inspiration  of  myths — as  in 
fact  it  has  done.  The  Middle  Ages  are  to 
Chesterton  what  King  Alfred  was  to  the 
Chartists  and  early  Radicals.  They  believed 
that  in  his  days  England  was  actually  governed 
on  Chartist  principles.  So  it  happens  that  two 
Radical  papers  of  the  early  part  of  last  century 
actually  called  themselves  The  Alfred,  and  that 
Major  Cartwright  spent  a  considerable  amount 
of  energy  in  inducing  the  Greeks  to  substitute 
pikes  for  bayonets  in  their  struggles  against 
the  Turks,  on  the  grounds  that  the  pike  was 
used  in  Alfred's  England. 

So  there  we  have  Chesterton  believing  de- 
voutly that  that  servile  state,  stricken  with 
plague,  and  afflicted  with  death  in  all  its  forms, 
is  the  dreamland  of  the  saints.  His  political 
principles,  roughly  speaking,  are  England  was 
decent  once — let  us  apply  the  same  recipe  to 

138 


THE    POLITICIAN 

the  England  of  to-day.  His  suggestions,  there- 
fore, are  rather  negative  than  positive.  He 
would  dam  the  flood  of  modern  legislative  ten- 
dencies because  it  is  taking  England  farther 
away  from  his  Middle  Ages.  But  he  will  not 
say  "  do  this  "  about  anything,  because  in  the 
Middle  Ages  they  made  few  laws,  not  having, 
in  point  of  fact,  the  power  to  enforce  those 
offences  against  moral  and  economic  law  which 
then  took  the  place  of  legislation. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  to  what  extent 
Chesterton  has  surrendered  himself  to  this 
myth ;  whether  he  has  come  to  accept  it 
because  he  liked  it,  or  in  order  to  please  his 
friend,  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc,  from  whom  G.K.C. 
never  differs  politically.  Once  they  stood  side 
by  side  and  debated  against  Mr.  Shaw  and 
Mr.  Wells,  arguing  from  Socialism  to  beer,  and 
thence  to  religion. 

In  January,  1908,  Chesterton  accepted  the 
invitation  of  the  Editor  of  The  New  Age  to 
explain  why  he  did  not  call  himself  a  Socialist, 
in  spite  of  his  claim  to  possess  "  not  only  a 
faith  in  democracy,  but  a  great  tenderness  for 
revolution."  The  explanation  is  complicated, 
to  say  the  least.  In  the  first  place  Chesterton 
does  not  want  people  to  share,  they  should 
give  and  take.  In  the  second  place,  as  a 
democrat  (which  nobody  else  is)  he  has  a  vast 

139 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

respect  (which  nobody  else  has)  for  the  work- 
ing classes.    And 

one  thing  I  should  affirm  as  certain,  the  whole  smell 
and  sentiment  and  general  ideal  of  Socialism  they 
detest  and  disdain.  No  part  of  the  community  is  so 
specially  fixed  in  those  forms  and  feelings  which  are 
opposite  to  the  tone  of  most  Socialists  ;  the  privacy 
of  homes,  the  control  of  one's  own  children,  the 
minding  of  one's  own  business.  I  look  out  of  my 
back  windows  over  the  black  stretch  of  Battersea, 
and  I  believe  I  could  make  up  a  sort  of  creed,  a  cata- 
logue of  maxims,  which  I  am  certain  are  believed, 
and  believed  strongly,  by  the  overwhelming  mass  of 
men  and  women  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach.  For 
instance,  that  an  Englishman's  house  is  his  castle, 
and  that  awful  proprieties  ought  to  regulate  admis- 
sion to  it ;  that  marriage  is  a  real  bond,  making 
jealousy  and  marital  revenge  at  the  least  highly 
pardonable  ;  that  vegetarianism  and  all  pitting  of 
animal  against  human  rights  is  a  silly  fad  ;  that  on 
the  other  hand  to  save  money  to  give  yourself  a  fine 
funeral  is  not  a  silly  fad,  but  a  symbol  of  ancestral 
self-respect ;  that  when  giving  treats  to  friends  or 
children,  one  should  give  them  what  they  like, 
emphatically  not  what  is  good  for  them  ;  that  there 
is  nothing  illogical  in  being  furious  because  Tommy 
has  been  coldly  caned  by  a  schoolmistress  and  then 
throwing  saucepans  at  him  yourself.  All  these  things 
they  believe  ;  they  are  the  only  people  who  do  believe 
them  ;  and  they  are  absolutely  and  eternally  right. 
They  are  the  ancient  sanities  of  humanity  ;  the  ten 
commandments  of  man. 

140 


THE    POLITICIAN 

A  week  later,  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  who  at  that 
time  had  not  yet  broken  away  from  organized 
Socialism,  but  was  actually  a  member  of  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  Fabian  Society, 
wrote  a  reply  to  the  case  against  Socialism 
which  had  been  stated  by  Chesterton,  and,  a 
week  earlier,  by  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc.  He 
attempted  to  get  Chesterton  to  look  facts  in 
the  face.  He  pointed  out  that  as  things  are 
"  I  do  not  see  how  Belloc  and  Chesterton  can 
stand  for  anything  but  a  strong  State  as 
against  those  wild  monsters  of  property,  the 
strong,  big,  private  owners."  Suppose  that 
Chesterton  isn't  a  Socialist,  is  he  more  on  the 
side  of  the  Socialists  or  on  that  of  the  Free 
Trade  Liberal  capitalists  and  landlords  ?  "It 
isn't  an  adequate  reply  to  say  [of  Socialism] 
that  nobody  stood  treat  there,  and  that  the 
simple,  generous  people  like  to  beat  their  own 
wives  and  children  on  occasion  in  a  loving  and 
intimate  manner,  and  that  they  won't  endure 
the  spirit  of  Sidney  Webb." 

A  fortnight  later,  Chesterton  replied.  But, 
though  many  have  engaged  with  him  in  con- 
troversy, I  doubt  if  anybody  has  ever  pinned 
him  down  to  a  fact  or  an  argument.  On  this 
occasion,  G.K.C.  politely  refused  even  to  refer 
to  the  vital  point  of  the  case  of  Mr.  H.  G. 
Weils.     On  the  other  hand  he  wrote  a  very 

141 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

jolly  article  about  beer  and  "  tavern  hospi- 
tality." The  argument  marked  time  for  two 
weeks  more,  when  Mr.  Belloc  once  again 
entered  the  lists.  The  essence  of  his  contri- 
bution is  "  I  premise  that  man,  in  order  to  be 
normally  happy,  tolerably  happy,  must  own." 
Collectivism  will  not  let  him  own.  The  trouble 
about  the  present  state  of  society  is  that  people 
do  not  own  enough.  The  remedy  proposed 
will  be  worse  than  the  disease.  Then  Mr. 
Bernard  Shaw  had  a  look  in. 

In  the  course  of  his  lengthy  article  he  gave 
"  the  Chesterbelloc  " — "  a  very  amusing  pan- 
tomime elephant  " — several  shrewd  digs  in  the 
ribs.  It  claimed,  according  to  G.B.S.,  to  be 
the  Zeitgeist.  "  To  which  we  reply,  bluntly, 
but  conclusively,  '  Gammon  !  '  "  The  rest  was 
mostly  amiable  personalities.  Mr,  Shaw  owned 
up  to  musical  cravings,  compared  with  which 
the  Chesterbelloc  tendency  to  consume  alcohol 
was  as  nothing.  He  also  jeered  very  pleasantly 
at  Mr.  Belloc's  power  to  cause  a  stampede  of 
Chesterton's  political  and  religious  ideas.  "  For 
Belloc's  sake  Chesterton  says  he  believes  liter- 
ally in  the  Bible  story  of  the  Resurrection. 
For  Belloc's  sake  he  says  he  is  not  a  Socialist. 
On  a  recent  occasion  I  tried  to  drive  him  to 
swallow  the  Miracle  of  St.  Januarius  for  Belloc's 
sake  ;    but  at  that  he  stuck.     He  pleaded  his 

142 


THE    POLITICIAN 

belief  in  the  Resurrection  story.  He  pointed 
out  very  justly  that  I  believe  in  lots  of  things 
just  as  miraculous  as  the  Miracle  of  St.  Janu- 
arius  ;  but  when  I  remorselessly  pressed  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  believe  that  the  blood  of 
St.  Januarius  reliquefies  miraculously  every 
year,  the  Credo  stuck  in  his  throat  like  Amen 
in  Macbeth's.  He  had  got  down  at  last  to  his 
irreducible  minimum  of  dogmatic  incredulity, 
and  could  not,  even  with  the  mouth  of  the 
bottomless  pit  yawning  before  Belloc,  utter 
the  saving  lie." 

By  this  time  the  discussion  was  definitely 
off  Socialism.  Chesterton  produced  another 
article,  The  Last  of  the  Rationalists^  in  reply 
to  Mr.  Shaw,  from  which  one  gathered  what 
one  had  been  previously  suspected  that  "  you 
[namely  Mr.  Shaw,  but  in  practice  both  the 
opposition  controversialists]  have  confined 
yourselves  to  charming  essays  on  our  two 
charming  personalities."  And  there  they 
stopped. 

The  year  following  this  bout  of  personalities 
saw  the  publication  of  a  remarkably  brilliant 
book  by  Chesterton,  George  Bernard  Shaw,  in 
which,  one  might  have  expected,  the  case 
against  the  political  creed  represented  by 
G.B.S.  might  have  been  carried  a  trifle  farther. 
Instead  of  which  it  was  not  carried  anything 

143 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

like  so  far.  Chesterton  jeered  at  Mr.  Shaw's 
vegetarianism,  denied  his  democracy,  but  de- 
cided that  on  the  whole  he  was  a  good  repub- 
lican, "  in  the  literal  and  Latin  sense  ;  he  cares 
more  for  the  Public  Thing  than  for  any  private 
thing."  He  ends  the  chapter  entitled  "  The 
Progressive  "  by  saying  the  kindest  things  he 
ever  said  about  any  body  of  Socialists. 

I  have  in  my  time  had  my  fling  at  the  Fabian 
Society,  at  the  pedantry  of  schemes,  the  arrogance 
of  experts  ;  nor  do  I  regret  it  now.  But  when  I 
remember  that  other  world  against  which  it  reared 
its  bourgeois  banner  of  cleanliness  and  common  sense, 
I  will  not  end  this  chapter  without  doing  it  decent 
honour.  Give  me  the  drain  pipes  of  the  Fabians 
rather  than  the  panpipes  of  the  later  poets  ;  the 
drain  pipes  have  a  nicer  smell. 

The  reader  may  have  grasped  by  this  time 
the  fact  that  Chesterton's  objections  to  Socialism 
were  based  rather  on  his  dislike  of  what  the 
working  man  calls  "  mucking  people  about  " 
than  on  any  economic  grounds.  He  made 
himself  the  sworn  enemy  of  any  Bill  before 
Parliament  which  contained  any  proposals  to 
appoint  inspectors.  He  took  the  line  that  the 
sacredness  of  the  home  diminishes  visibly  with 
the  entrance  of  the  gas  collector,  and  disappears 
down  the  kitchen  sink  with  the  arrival  of  the 
school    attendance    officer.      In    those    of   his 

144 


THE    POLITICIAN 

writings  which  I  have  not  seen  I  have  no  doubt 
there  are  pleadings  for  the  retention  of  the 
cesspool,  because  it  is  the  last  moat  left  to  the 
Englishman's  house,  which  is  his  castle.  It  is 
difficult  to  believe  in  the  complete  sincerity 
of  such  an  attitude.  The  inspector  is  the  chief 
enemy  of  the  bad  landlord  and  employer,  he 
is  a  fruit  of  democracy.  In  the  early  days  of 
the  factory  system,  when  mercilessly  long 
hours  were  worked  by  children  and  women, 
when  legislation  had  failed  to  ameliorate  the 
conditions  of  employment,  because  the  em- 
ployers were  also  the  magistrates,  and  would 
not  enforce  laws  against  themselves,  the  great 
Reform  Bill  agitation,  which  so  nearly  caused 
a  revolution  in  this  country,  came  to  an  end, 
having  in  1832  achieved  a  partial  success.  But 
the  new  House  of  Commons  did  not  at  once 
realize  how  partial  it  was,  and  at  first  it 
regarded  the  interests  of  working  men  with 
something  of  the  intensity  of  the  Liberal 
Government  of  1906,  which  had  not  yet  come 
to  appreciate  the  new  and  portentous  Labour 
Party  at  its  true  worth.  So  in  1833  inspectors 
were  appointed  for  the  first  time.  This  very 
brief  excursion  into  history  is  sufficient  justi- 
fication for  refusing  to  take  seriously  those 
who  would  have  us  believe  that  inspectors  are 
necessarily  the  enemies  of  the  human  race. 
K  145 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Chesterton's  theory  that  middle-class  Socialists 
are  people  who  want  to  do  things  to  the  poor 
in  the  direction  of  regimenting  them  finds  an 
easy  refutation.  When,  in  1910,  the  whole  of 
England  fell  down  before  the  eloquence  of 
Mr.  Lloyd  George,  and  consented  to  the  Insur- 
ance Bill,  the  one  body  of  people  who  stood  out 
and  fought  that  Bill  was  that  middle-class 
Socialist  body,  the  Fabian  Society.  It  is 
sometimes  desirable,  for  purposes  of  contro- 
versy, to  incarnate  a  theory  or  objection. 
Chesterton  lumped  together  all  his  views  on 
the  alleged  intentions  of  the  Socialists  to  inter- 
fere in  the  natural  and  legitimate  happinesses  of 
the  working  class,  and  called  this  curious  com- 
posite Mr.  Sidney  Webb.  So  through  many 
volumes  Mr.  Webb's  name  is  continually 
bobbing  up,  like  an  irrepressible  Aunt  Sally, 
and  having  to  be  thwacked  into  a  temporary 
disappearance.  But  this  is  only  done  for 
literary  effect.  To  heave  a  brick  at  a  man  is 
both  simpler  and  more  amusing  than  to  arraign 
a  system  or  a  creed.  A  reader  enjoys  the 
feeling  that  his  author  is  a  clever  dog  who  is 
making  it  devilishly  uncomfortable  for  his 
opponents.  His  appreciation  would  be  con- 
siderably less  if  the  opponent  in  question  was 
a  mere  theory.  In  point  of  fact,  Chesterton  is 
probably   a   warm   admirer   of  Mr.   and   Mrs. 

146 


THE   POLITICIAN 

Sidney  Webb.  When  they  founded  (in  1909) 
their  National  Committee  for  the  Prevention 
of  Destitution,  designed  to  educate  the  British 
pubHc  in  the  ideas  of  what  has  been  called 
Webbism,  especially  those  contained  in  the 
Minority  Report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission, 
one  of  the  first  to  join  was  G.  K.  Chesterton. 

The  word  Socialism  covers  a  multitude  of 
Socialists,  some  of  whom  are  not.  The  political 
faith  of  a  man,  therefore,  must  not  be  judged 
upon  his  attitude  towards  Socialism,  if-  we 
have  anything  more  definite  to  go  upon.  Ches- 
terton overflows,  so  to  speak,  with  predilec- 
tions, such  as  beer  (in  a  political  sense,  of 
course),  opposition  to  the  Jingo,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  middle-class  faddery,  such  as 
vegetarianism,  on  the  other,  and  so  on.  Any- 
body might  indulge  in  most  of  his  views,  in 
fact,  without  incurring  severe  moral  reproba- 
tion. But  there  is  an  exception  which,  un- 
fortunately, links  Chesterton  pretty  firmly 
with  the  sweater,  and  other  undesirable  lords 
of  creation.    He  is  an  anti- suffragist. 

In  a  little  essay  Chesterton  once  wrote  on 
Tolstoy,  he  argued  that  the  thing  that  has 
driven  men  mad  was  logic,  from  the  beginning 
of  time,  whereas  the  thing  that  has  kept  them 
sane  was  mysticism.  Tolstoy,  lacking  mysti- 
cism, was  at  the  mercy  of  his  pitiless  logic, 

147 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

which  led  him  to  condemn  things  which  are 
entirely  natural  and  human.  This  attitude, 
one  feels  (and  it  is  only  to  be  arrived  at  by 
feeling),  is  absolutely  right.  We  all  start  off 
with  certain  scarce  expressible  feelings  that 
certain  things  are  fundamentally  decent  and 
permissible,  and  that  others  are  the  reverse, 
just  as  we  do  not  take  our  idea  of  blackness 
and  whiteness  from  a  text-book.  If  anybody 
proposed  that  all  Scotsmen  should  be  com- 
pelled to  eat  sago  with  every  meal,  the  idea, 
although  novel  to  most  of  us,  would  be  in- 
stantly dismissed,  even,  it  is  probable,  by 
those  with  sago  interests,  because  it  would  be 
contrary  to  our  instinct  of  what  is  decent. 
In  fact,  we  all  believe  in  natural  rights,  or  at 
any  rate  we  claim  the  enjoyment  of  some. 
Now  natural  rights  have  no  logical  basis.  The 
late  Professor  D.  G.  Ritchie  very  brilliantly 
examined  the  theory  of  natural  rights,  and  by 
means  of  much  subtle  dissection  and  argument 
found  that  there  were  no  natural  rights  ;  law 
was  the  only  basis  of  privilege.  It  is  quite 
easy  to  be  convinced  by  the  author's  delightful 
dialectic,  but  the  conviction  is  apt  to  vanish 
suddenly  in  the  presence  of  a  dog  being  ill- 
treated. 

Now  on  a  basis  of  common  decency — the 
basis  of  all  democratic  political  thought — the 

148 


THE   POLITICIAN 

case  for  woman  suffrage  is  irresistible.  It  is 
not  decent  that  the  sweated  woman  worker 
should  be  denied  what,  in  the  opinion  of  many 
competent  judges,  might  be  the  instrument  of 
her  salvation.  It  is  not  decent  that  women 
should  share  a  disqualification  with  lunatics, 
criminals,  children,  and  no  others  of  their  own 
race.  It  is  not  decent  that  the  sex  which  knows 
most  about  babies  should  have  no  opportunity 
to  influence  directly  legislation  dealing  with 
babies.  It  is  not  decent  that  a  large,  important 
and  necessary  section  of  humanity,  with  highly 
gregarious  instincts,  should  not  be  allowed  to 
exercise  the  only  gregarious  function  which 
concerns  the  whole  nation  at  once. 

These  propositions  are  fundamental ;  if  a 
man  or  woman  cannot  accept  them,  then  he  is 
at  heart  an  "  anti,"  even  if  he  has  constructed 
for  himself  a  quantity  of  reasons,  religious, 
ethical,  economic,  political  or  what  not,  why 
women  should  be  allowed  to  vote.  Every 
suffrage  argument  is,  or  can  be,  based  on 
decencies,  not  on  emotion  or  statistics. 

Chesterton  bases  his  case  on  decencies,  but 
they  are  not  the  decencies  that  matter.  In 
Whafs  Wrong  with  the  World  he  insists  on  the 
indecency  of  allowing  women  to  cease  to  be 
amateurs  within  the  home,  or  of  allowing  them 
to  earn  a  living  in  a  factory  or  office,  or  of 

149 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

allowing  them  to  share  in  the  responsibility 
for  taking  the  lives  of  condemned  murderers, 
or  of  allowing  them  to  exercise  the  coercion 
which  is  government,  which  is  a  sort  of  pyra- 
mid, with  a  gallows  on  top,  the  ultimate  resort 
of  coercive  power.  And  in  these  alleged  in- 
decencies (the  word  is  not  altogether  my  own) 
lies  Chesterton's  whole  case  against  allowing 
any  woman  to  vote.  Into  these  propositions 
his  whole  case,  as  expressed  in  What's  Wrong 
with  the  World,  is  faithfully  condensed. 

Well  now,  are  these  indecencies  sincere  or 
simulated  ?  First,  as  regards  the  amateur. 
Chesterton's  case  is  that  the  amateur  is  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  counteract  the  influences  of 
the  specialist.  Man  is  nowadays  the  specialist. 
He  is  confined  to  making  such  things  as  the 
thousandth  part  of  a  motor-car  or  producing 
the  ten-thousandth  part  of  a  daily  newspaper. 
By  being  a  specialist  he  is  made  narrow. 
Woman,  with  the  whole  home  on  her  hands, 
has  a  multiphcity  of  tasks.  She  is  the  amateur, 
and  as  such  she  is  free.  If  she  is  put  into 
politics  or  industry  she  becomes  a  specialist, 
and  as  such  becomes  a  slave.  This  is  a  pretty 
piece  of  reasoning,  but  it  is  absolutely  hollow. 
There  are  few  women  who  do  not  gladly  resign 
part  at  least  of  their  sovereignty,  if  they  have 
the  chance,  to  a  maid-servant  (who  may  be, 

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THE    POLITICIAN 

and,  in  fact,  usually  is  an  amateur,  but  is  not 
free   to  try   daring   experiments)   or   to   such 
blatant  specialists  as  cooks  and  nursemaids. 
Nobody  is  the  least  bit  shocked  by  the  exist- 
ence  of   specialist    women.      Indeed,    it    is    a 
solemn  fact,  that  were  it  not  for  them  Chester- 
ton would  be  unable  to  procure  a  single  article 
of  clothing.     He  would  be  driven  to  the  fig- 
leaf,  and  would  stand  a  good  chance  of  not 
getting  even  so  much,  now  that  so  many  gar- 
deners are  women.    We  are  terribly  dependent 
upon  the  specialist  woman.     That  is  why  the 
amateur    within    the    home    is    beginning    to 
wondei  whether,  on  the  whole,  man  is  so  very 
much  dependent  upon  her.    She  comes  to  rely 
more  and  more  upon  the  specialist  women  to 
help  her  feed,  clothe,  and  nurse  her  husband. 
She  has  so  much  done  for  her  that  she  comes 
to  understand  the  remainder  left  to  her  far 
better.    She  becomes  a  specialist  herself,  and 
feels  kindly  towards  other  specialists.     Then 
she   demands   a  vote   and   meets   Chesterton, 
who  tells  her  to  go  and  mind  the  baby  and  be 
as  free  as  she  likes  with  the  domestic  apparatus 
for  making  pastry,  when  her  baby  is  in  point 
of  fact  being  brought  up  by  other  women  at  a 
Montessoii  school  to  be  much  more  intelligent 
and  much  more  of  a  specialist  than  she  herself 
is  ever  likely  to  be,  and  when  she  knows  that 

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G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

her  dyspeptic  husband  has  an  absolute  loath- 
ing for  the  amateurishness  that  expresses  itself 
in  dough. 

Then  there  is  the  alleged  wrongness  of  per- 
mitting women  to  work  in  factories  and  offices. 
We  are  all  probably  prepared  to  admit  that 
we  have  been  shocked  at  the  commercial  em- 
ployment of  women.  But  it  has  probably 
occurred  to  few  of  us  that  the  shock  was  due 
simply  to  their  commercial  employment.  It 
was  due  to  their  low  wages  and  to  the  beastli- 
ness of  their  employers.  When  they  drew 
decent  wages  and  their  employers  were  decent 
men  we  were  not  the  least  bit  hurt.  But  when 
an  employer  made  use  of  the  amateurishness 
of  young  girls  to  underpay  them,  and  then 
make  deductions  from  their  wages  on  various 
trivial  pretexts,  and  put  them  to  work  in  over- 
crowded factories  and  offices,  then  we  all  felt 
acutely  that  an  indecency  was  being  com- 
mitted. The  obvious  democratic  remedy  is 
the  duckpond,  but  in  our  great  cities  none 
remain.  So  one  is  sorrowfully  brought  round 
to  the  slower  but  surer  expedient  of  attacking 
and  destroying  the  amateurishness  of  women 
at  the  point  where  it  is  dangerous  to  them. 
Amateurishness  has  encircled  women  in  the 
past  like  the  seven  rivers  of  Hades.  Every 
now  and  again  a  daring  excursion  was  made  in 

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THE    POLITICIAN 

order  that  the  wisdom  of  those  imprisoned 
within  should  be  added  to  our  store.  A  good 
deal  of  aboriginal  amateurishness  has  been 
evaporating  as  the  woman  doctor  has  been 
taking  the  place  of  the  time-honoured  amateur 
dispenser  of  brimstone  and  treacle,  and  even 
horrider  things.  And  will  Chesterton  maintain 
that  it  were  better  for  us  all  if  certain  women 
had  remained  amateurs  and  had  not  studied 
and  specialized  so  that,  in  time  of  need,  they 
were  enabled  to  tend  the  sick  and  wounded  at 
home,  in  Flanders  and  in  France,  and  wherever 
the  powers  of  evil  had  been  at  work  ? 

Lastly,  is  it  decent  that  women  should  share 
the  awful  responsibility  which  is  attached  to 
the  ultimate  control  of  the  State,  when  the 
State  is  compelled  to  use  the  gallows  ?  If 
women  vote,  they  are  responsible  for  whatever 
blood  is  shed  by  the  State.  Yes,  but,  Mr. 
Chesterton,  aren't  they  just  as  responsible  for 
it  in  any  case  ?  Don't  women  help  to  pay  the 
hangman's  wages  with  every  ounce  of  tea  or 
of  sweets  they  buy  ?  If  capital  punishment 
is  obscene,  then  we  can  do  without  it,  and  a 
woman's  vote  will  not  make  her  a  sharer  in 
the  evil.  If  capital  punishment  is  morally 
stimulating  to  the  nation  at  large,  there  is  no 
reason  why  women  should  not  be  allowed  to 
share    in    the    stimulation.      Now    what    has 

153 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

become  of  Chesterton's  decencies  ?  It  is 
indeed  saddening  that  a  man  who  never  misses 
an  opportunity  to  proclaim  himself  a  demo- 
crat should  take  his  stand  on  this  matter 
beside  Lord  Curzon,  and  in  opposition  to  the 
instinctively  and  essentially  democratic  views 
proclaimed  by  such  men  as  Messrs.  H.  W. 
Nevinson  and  Philip  Snowden. 

In  an  article  in  The  Illustrated  London  News 
on  June  1st,  1912,  Chesterton  showed  whose 
side  he  was  on  with  unusual  distinctness.  The 
subject  of  the  article  was  Earnestness  ;  the 
moral,  that  it  was  a  bad  quality,  the  property 
of  Socialists  and  Anti-Socialists,  and  Suffragists, 
and  that  apathy  was  best  of  all.    It  concluded  : 

Neither  Socialists  nor  Suffragists  will  smash  our 
polities,  I  fear.  The  worst  they  can  do  is  to  put  a 
little  more  of  the  poison  of  earnestness  into  the 
strong,  unconscious  sanity  of  our  race,  and  disturb 
that  deep  and  just  indifference  on  which  all  things 
rest ;  the  quiet  of  the  mother  or  the  carelessness  of 
the  child. 

In  remarkably  similar  words,  the  late  Pro- 
curator of  the  Holy  Synod  of  the  Russian 
Church,  C.  P.  Pobedonostsev,  condemned  de- 
mocracy in  his  book,  The  Reflexions  of  a 
Russian  Statesman,  and  praised  vis  inertice  for 
its  preservative  effects.  But  the  Russian  had 
more  consistency  ;  he  did  not  merely  condemn 

154 


THE    POLITICIAN 

votes  for  women,  but  also  votes  for  men  ;  and 
not  only  votes,  but  education,  the  jury  system, 
the  freedom  of  the  Press,  religious  freedom, 
and  many  other  things. 

Putting  aside  the  question  of  woman  suf- 
frage, Chesterton's  views  on  democracy  may 
be  further  illustrated  by  reference  to  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Joint  Select  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Lords  and  the  House  of  Commons, 
1909,  on  Stage  Plays  (Censorship).  He  may 
speak  for  himself  here. 

Mr.  G.  K.  Chesterton  is  called  in,  and 
examined. 

Question  614<l{Chairman).  I  understand  that  you 
appear  here  to  give  evidence  on  behalf  of  the  average 
man  ? 

G.K.C.  Yes,  that  is  so.  I  represent  the  audience, 
in  fact.  I  am  neither  a  dramatist  nor  a  dramatic 
critic.  I  do  not  quite  know  why  I  am  here,  but  if 
anybody  wants  to  know  my  views  on  the  subject  they 
are  these  :  I  am  for  the  censorship,  but  I  am  against 
the  present  Censor.  I  am  very  strongly  for  the 
censorship,  and  I  am  very  strongly  against  the  present 
Censor.  The  whole  question  I  think  turns  on  the 
old  democratic  objection  to  despotism.  I  am  an  old- 
fashioned  person  and  I  retain  the  old  democratic 
objection  to  despotism.  I  would  trust  12  ordinary 
men,  but  I  cannot  trust  one  ordinary  man. 

6142.  You  prefer  the  jury  to  the  judge  ? — ^Yes, 
exactly  ;  that  is  the  very  point.  It  seems  to  me 
that  if  you  have  one  ordinary  man  judging,  it  is  not 

155 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

his  ordinariness  that  appears,  but  it  is  his  extra- 
ordinariness  that  appears.  Take  anybody  you  Hke — 
George  III  for  instance.  I  suppose  that  George  III 
was  a  pretty  ordinary  man  in  one  sense.  People 
called  him  Farmer  George.  He  was  very  like  a  large 
number  of  other  people,  but  when  he  was  alone  in 
his  position  things  appeared  in  him  that  were  not 
ordinary — that  he  was  a  German,  and  that  he  was 
mad,  and  various  other  facts.  Therefore,  my  primary 
principle 

6143.  He  gloried  in  the  name  of  Briton  ? — I  know 
he  did.  That  is  what  showed  him  to  be  so  thoroughly 
German. 

Lord  Newton.    He  spelt  it  wrongly. 

Witness.  Therefore,  speaking  broadly,  I  would 
not  take  George  Ill's  opinion,  but  I  would  take  the 
opinion  of  12  George  Ill's  on  any  question. 

The  taking  of  the  "  evidence  "  took  several 
hours,  but  it  never  yielded  anything  more 
than  this  :  The  local  jury  is  a  better  judge  of 
what  is  right  and  proper  than  a  single  Censor. 
Juries  may  differ  in  their  judgments  ;  but 
why  not  ?  Is  it  not  desirable  that  Hampstead 
and  Highgate  should  each  have  an  opportunity 
of  finding  out  independently  what  they  like  ? 
May  they  not  compete  in  taste  one  against 
the  other  ? 

This  introduction  of  the  question  of  dramatic 
censorship  invites  a  slight  digression.  Chester- 
ton has  a  decided  regard  for  a  dramatic  censor- 

156 


THE    POLITICIAN 

ship.  A  book  need  not  be  censored,  because  it 
need  not  be  finished  by  its  reader,  but  it  may 
be  difficult  to  get  out  of  a  theatre  in  the  course 
of  a  performance.  And  there  are  performances 
of  plays,  written  by  "  irresponsible  modern 
philosophers,"  which,  to  Chesterton,  seem  to 
deserve  suppression.  A  suggestive  French 
farce  may  be  a  dirty  joke,  but  it  is  at  least  a 
joke  ;  but  a  play  which  raises  the  question  Is 
marriage  a  failure  ?  and  answers  it  in  the 
affirmative,  is  a  pernicious  philosophy.  The 
answer  to  this  last  contention  is  that,  in  point 
of  strict  fact,  modern  philosophers  do  not 
regard  happy  marriages  as  failures,  and  opinion 
is  divided  on  the  others,  which  are  generally 
the  subjects  of  their  plays.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that  a  jury  is  better  qualified  than  a 
single  Censor.  A  French  jury  decided  that 
Madame  Bovary  was  not  immoral.  An  English 
jury  decided  that  a  certain  book  by  Zola  was 
immoral  and  sent  the  publisher  to  prison. 
Another  English  jury,  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses, decided  that  Dorian  Gray  was  not 
immoral,  and  so  on.  The  verdicts  may  be 
accepted.  Twelve  men,  picked  from  an 
alphabetical  list,  may  not  be  judges  of  art, 
but  they  will  not  debase  morality. 

Chesterton's    personal    contribution    to   the 
political  thought  of  his  day  lies  in  his  criticism 

157 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

of  the  humaneness  of  legislative  proposals.  A 
thing  that  is  human  is  commonly  a  very 
different  matter  from  a  thing  that  is  merely 
humanitarian.  G.K.C.  is  hotly  human  and 
almost  bitterly  anti-humanitarian. 

The  difference  between  the  two  is  illustrated 
by  the  institution  of  the  gallows,  which  is 
human,  but  not  humanitarian.  In  its  essen- 
tials it  consists  of  a  rope  and  a  branch,  which 
is  precisely  the  apparatus  that  an  angry  man 
might  employ  in  order  to  rid  himself  of  his 
captured  enemy.  Herbert  Spencer,  seeking 
in  his  old  age  for  means  whereby  to  increase 
the  happiness  of  mankind,  invented  a  humani- 
tarian apparatus  for  the  infliction  of  capital 
punishment.  It  consisted  of  a  glorified  round- 
about, on  which  the  victim  was  laid  for  his 
last  journey.  As  it  revolved,  the  blood-pres- 
sure on  his  head  gradually  increased  (or 
decreased,  I  forget  which)  until  he  fell  asleep 
and  died  painlessly.  This  is  humanitarianism. 
The  process  is  safe  and  sure  (so  long  as  the 
machine  did  not  stop  suddenly),  highly  efficient, 
bloodless  and  painless.  But  just  because  it  is 
so  humanitarian  it  offends  one  a  great  deal 
more  than  the  old-fashioned  gallows.  The 
only  circumstance  which  can  justify  violence 
is  anger.  The  only  circumstance  which  can 
justify  the  taking  of  human  life  is  anger.    And 

158 


THE    POLITICIAN 

anger  may  be  expressed  by  a  rope  or  a  knife- 
edge,  but  not  by  a  roundabout  or  any  other 
morbid  invention  of  a  cold-blooded  philosopher 
such  as  the  electric  chair,  or  the  lethal  chamber. 
In  the  same  way,  if  flogging  is  to  continue  as 
a  punishment,  it  must  be  inflicted  by  a  man 
and  not  by  a  machine. 

Now  this  distinction  (made  without  preju- 
dice as  to  Chesterton's  views  on  capital  or 
corporal  punishment)  holds  good  through  his 
whole  criticism  of  modern  legislation.  He 
believes  that  it  is  better  that  a  man  and  his 
family  should  starve  in  their  own  slum,  than 
that  they  should  be  moulded,  by  a  cumbersome 
apparatus  of  laws  and  officials  and  inspectors, 
into  a  tame,  mildly  prosperous  and  mildly 
healthy  group  of  individuals,  whose  opinions, 
occupations  and  homes  should  be  provided  for 
them.  On  these  lines  he  attacks  whatever  in 
his  opinion  will  tend  to  put  men  into  a  position 
where  their  souls  will  be  less  their  own.  He 
believes  that  the  man  who  has  been  costered 
by  the  Government  into  a  mediocre  state  of 
life  will  be  less  of  a  man  than  one  who  has  been 
left  unbothered  by  officials,  and  has  had  to 
shift  for  himself. 

Very  largely,  therefore,  Chesterton's  political 
faith  is  an  up-to-date  variety  of  the  tenets  of 
the  Self-Help  School,  which  was  own  brother 

159 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

to  the  Manchester  School.  And  here  we  come 
to  a  curious  contradiction,  the  first  of  a  series. 
For  Chesterton  loathes  the  Manchester  School. 
The  contradiction  comes  of  an  inveterate 
nominalism.  To  G.K.C.  all  good  politics  are 
summed  up  in  the  words  Liberty,  Equality, 
Fraternity.  But  nobody,  not  even  a  French- 
man, can  explain  what  they  mean.  Chesterton 
used  to  believe  that  they  mean  Liberalism, 
being  led  astray  by  the  sound  of  the  first  word, 
but  he  soon  realized  his  error.  Let  a  man  say 
"  I  believe  in  Liberty  "  and  only  the  vague- 
ness of  the  statement  preserves  it  from  the 
funniness  of  a  Higher  Thinker's  affirmation, 
"  I  believe  in  Beauty."  A  man  has  to  feel 
Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity,  for  they  are  not 
in  the  nature  of  facts.  And  one  suspects 
horribly  that  what  Chesterton  really  feels  is 
merely  the  masculine  liberty,  equality  and 
fraternity  of  the  public-house,  where  men  meet 
together  but  never  do  anything.  For  Chester- 
ton has  not  yet  asked  us  to  do  anything,  he 
only  requests  Parliament  to  refrain.  He  sup- 
ports no  political  programme.  He  is  opposed 
to  Party  Government,  which  is  government 
by  the  Government.  He  is  in  favour  of  Home 
Rule,  it  may  be  inferred  ;  and  of  making  things 
nasty  for  the  Jews,  it  may  be  supposed.  But 
he  does  not  poach  on  the  leader-writers'  pre- 

160 


THE    POLITICIAN 

serves,  and  his  political  programme  is  left 
hazy.  His  opposition  to  Liberal  proposals 
brings  him  near  the  Tories.  If  the  Liberals 
continue  in  power  for  a  few  years  longer,  and 
Home  Rule  drops  out  of  the  things  opposed 
by  Tories,  the  latter  may  well  find  Chesterton 
among  their  doubtful  assets.  He  will  probably 
continue  to  call  himself  a  Liberal  and  a  "  child 
of  the  French  Revolution,"  but  that  will  be 
only  his  fun.  For  the  interesting  abortions  to 
which  the  French  Revolution  gave  birth — 
well,  they  are  quite  another  story. 

Chesterton  is  a  warm  supporter  of  the 
queerly  mixed  proposals  that  are  known  as 
the  "  rights  of  small  nationalities,"  and  the 
smaller  the  nationality,  the  more  warmly  he 
supports  (so  he  would  have  us  believe)  its 
demand  for  self-government.  Big  fleas  have 
little  fleas,  alas,  and  that  is  the  difficulty  he 
does  not  confront.  For  Home  Rule  carried  to 
its  final  sub-division  is  simply  home  rule  ;  the 
independence  of  homes.  Political  Home  Rule 
is  only  assented  to  on  general  principles ; 
apparently  on  the  ground  that  on  the  day 
when  an  Englishman's  home  really  does  be- 
come his  castle  he  will  not,  so  to  speak,  mind 
much  whether  he  is  an  Englishman  or  an 
Irishman. 

And  here  we  may  bid  farewell  to  the  poli- 
L  161 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

tician  who  is  Chesterton.  His  politics  are  like 
his  perverse  definitions  of  the  meaning  of  such 
words  as  progress  and  reform.  He  is  like  a 
child  who  plays  about  with  the  hands  of  a 
clock,  and  makes  the  surprising  discovery  that 
some  clocks  may  be  made  to  tell  a  time  that 
does  not  exist — with  the  small  hand  at  twelve 
and  the  large  at  six,  for  example.  Also  that  if 
a  clock  goes  fast,  it  comes  to  register  an  hour 
behind  the  true  time,  and  the  other  way  round. 
And  so  Chesterton  goes  on  playing  with  the 
times,  until  at  last  a  horrid  suspicion  grips  us. 
What  if  he  cannot  tell  the  time  himself  ? 


162 


VIII 

A   DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

An  idea,  if  treated  gently,  may  be  brought  up 
to  perform  many  useful  tasks.  It  is,  however, 
apt  to  pine  in  solitude,  and  should  be  allowed 
to  enjoy  the  company  of  others  of  its  own 
kind.  It  is  much  easier  to  overwork  an  idea 
than  a  man,  and  of  the  two,  the  wearied  idea 
presents  an  infinitely  more  pathetic  appearance. 
Those  of  us  who,  for  our  sins,  have  to  review 
the  novels  of  other  people,  are  accustomed  to 
the  saddening  spectacle  of  a  poor  little  idea, 
beautiful  and  fresh  in  its  youth,  come  wearily 
to  its  tombstone  on  page  300  (where  or  where- 
abouts novels  end),  trailing  after  it  an  immense 
load  of  stiff  and  heavy  puppets,  taken  down 
from  the  common  property-cupboards  of  the 
nation's  fiction,  and  not  even  dusted  for  the 
occasion.  Manalive,  as  we  have  seen,  suffered 
from  its  devotion  to  one  single  idea,  but  the 
poor  little  thing  was  kept  going  to  the  bitter 
end  by  the  flow  of  humorous  encouragement 
given  it  by  the  author.     The  later  works  of 

163 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Chesterton,  however,  are  symbolized  by  a 
performing  flea,  dragging  behind  it  a  httle 
cartload  of  passengers.  But  it  sometimes 
happens  that  the  humour  of  Manalive  is  not 
there,  that  one  weary  idea  has  to  support  an 
intolerable  deal  of  prose. 

In  An  Essay  on  Two  Cities'^  there  is  a  long 
passage  illustrating  the  adventures  of  a  man 
who  tried  to  find  people  in  London  by  the 
names  of  the  places.  He  might  go  into  Buck- 
ingham Palace  in  search  of  the  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham, into  Marlborough  House  in  quest  of 
the  Duke  of  Marlborough.  He  might  even 
look  for  the  Duke  of  Wellington  at  Waterloo. 

I  wonder  that  no  one  has  written  a  wild  romance 
about  the  adventures  of  such  an  alien,  seeking  the 
great  English  aristocrats,  and  only  guided  by  the 
names  ;  looking  for  the  Duke  of  Bedford  in  the  town 
of  that  name,  seeking  for  some  trace  of  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk  in  Norfolk.  He  might  sail  for  Wellington 
in  New  Zealand  to  find  the  ancient  seat  of  the  Welling- 
tons. The  last  scene  might  show  him  trying  to  learn 
Welsh  in  order  to  converse  with  the  Prince  of  Wales. 

Here  is  an  idea  that  is  distinctly  amusing  when 
made  to  fill  one  short  paragraph,  and  might 
be  deadly  tedious  if  extended  into  a  wild 
romance.  Perhaps  the  best  way  of  summariz- 
ing the  peculiar  decadence  into  which  Ches- 

1  All  Things  Considered. 

164 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

terton  seemed  at  one  time  to  be  falling  is  by 
the  statement  that  up  to  the  present  he  has 
not  found  time  to  write  the  book,  but  has  done 
others  like  it.  And  yet  the  decadence  has 
never  showed  signs  of  that  fin  de  Steele  rustiness 
that  marked  the  decadent  movement  (if  it  was 
really  a  movement  and  not  just  an  obsession) 
of  the  generation  that  preceded  Chesterton. 
He  cursed  it  in  the  dedication  to  Mr.  E.  C. 
Bentley  of  The  Man  who  was  Thursday,  and 
he  remained  true  to  the  point  of  view  expressed 
in  that  curse  for  ever  afterwards. 

A  cloud  was  on  the  mind  of  men,  and  wailing  went  the 

weather, 
Yea,  a  sick  cloud  upon  the  soul,  when  we  were  boys 

together. 
Science  announced  nonentity,  and  art  admired  decay  ; 
The  world  was  old  and  ended  :  but  you  and  I  were  gay. 
Round  us  in  antic  order  their  crippled  vices  came — 
Lust  that  had  lost  its  laughter,  fear  that  had  lost  its 

shame. 
Like  the  white  lock  of  Whistler,  that  lit  our  aimless  gloom, 
Men  showed  their  own  white  feather  as  proudly  as  a 

plume. 
Life  was  a  fly  that  faded,  and  death  a  drone  that  stung  ; 
The  world  was  very  old  indeed  when  you  and  I  were 

young. 
They  twisted  even  decent  sin  to  shapes  not  to  be  named  : 
Men  were  ashamed  of  honour  ;  but  we  were  not  ashamed. 

The  Chestertonian  decadence  was  not  even 
an  all-round  falling-off.     If  anybody  were  to 

165 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

make  the  statement  that  in  the  year  nineteen- 
hundred-and-something  Chesterton  produced 
his  worst  work  it  would  be  open  to  anybody 
else  to  declare,  with  equal  truth,  that  in  the 
same  year  Chesterton  produced  his  best  work. 
And  the  year  in  which  these  extremes  met 
would  be  either  1913  or  1914,  the  years  of 
Father  Brown  and  The  Flying  Inn  on  one  hand, 
and  of  Father  Brown  and  some  of  the  songs  of 
The  Flying  Inn  on  the  other.  It  was  not  a 
technical  decline,  but  the  period  of  certain 
intellectual  wearinesses,  when  Chesterton's 
mental  resilience  failed  him  for  a  time,  and 
he  welcomed  with  too  much  enthusiasm  the 
nasty  ideas  from  which  no  man  is  wholly  free. 

The  main  feature  indeed  of  this  period  of 
decadence  is  the  brandishing  about  of  a  whole 
mass  of  antipathies.  A  man  is  perfectly  en- 
titled to  hate  what  he  will,  but  it  is  generally 
assumed  that  the  hater  has  some  ideas  on  the 
subject  of  the  reform  of  the  hatee.  But  Ches- 
terton is  as  devoid  of  suggestions  as  a  goat  is 
of  modesty.  A  man  may  have  a  violent  ob- 
jection against  women  earning  their  own 
livings,  and  yet  be  regarded  as  a  reasonable 
being  if  he  has  any  alternative  proposals  for  the 
well-being  of  the  unendowed  and  temporarily 
or  permanently  unmarriageable  woman,  with 
no  relatives  able  to  support  her — ^and  there 

166 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

are  two  or  three  millions  of  such  women  in  the 
United  Kingdom.  But  a  mere  "  You  shouldn't " 
is  neither  here  nor  there. 

Take  this  verse.  It  was  written  two  or 
three  years  ago  and  is  from  a  poem  entitled 
To  a  Turk. 

With  us  too  rage  against  the  rood 

Your  devils  and  your  swine  ; 
A  colder  scorn  of  womanhood, 

A  baser  fear  of  wine, 
And  lust  without  the  harem. 

And  Doom  without  the  God, 
Go.    It  is  not  this  rabble 

Sayeth  to  you  "  Ichabod." 

A  previous  stanza  talks  about  "  the  creedless 
chapel."  Here  is  a  whole  mass  of  prejudices 
collected  into  a  large  splutter  at  the  expense 
of  England.  If  the  verse  means  anything  at 
all,  it  means  that  the  English  are  nearer  the 
beasts  than  the  Turks. 

Another  of  Chesterton's  intellectual  aber- 
rations is  his  anti-Semitism.  He  continually 
denied  in  the  columns  of  The  Daily  Herald  that 
he  was  an  anti-Semite,  but  his  references  to  the 
Jews  are  innumerable  and  always  on  the  same 
side.  If  one  admits  what  appears  to  be  Ches- 
terton's contention  that  Judaism  is  largely 
just  an  exclusive  form  of  contemporary  atheism, 
then  one  is  entitled  to  ask.  Why  is  a  wicked 
Gentile    atheist    merely   an    atheist,    while    a 

167 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Jewish  atheist  remains  a  Jew  ?  Surely  the 
morals  of  both  are  on  the  same  level,  and  the 
atheism,  and  not  the  race,  is  the  offensive 
feature.  The  Jews  have  their  sinners  and  their 
saints,  including  the  greatest  Saint  of  all. 

They  and  they  only,  amongst  all  mankind, 
Received  the  transcript  of  the  eternal  mind ; 
Were  trusted  with  His  own  engraven  laws. 
And  constituted  guardians  of  His  cause : 
Their's  were  the  prophets,  their's  the  priestly  call. 
And  their's,  by  birth,  the  Saviour  of  us  all. 

Even  if  Chesterton  cannot  work  himself  up 
to  Cowper's  enthusiasm  (and  few  of  us  can), 
he  cannot  deny  that  the  race  he  is  continually 
blackguarding  was  preparing  his  religion,  and 
discovering  the  way  to  health  at  a  time  when 
his  own  Gentile  ancestors  were  probably  per- 
forming human  sacrifices  and  eating  worms. 
Unquestionably  what  is  the  matter  with  the 
modern  Jew,  especially  of  the  educated  classes, 
is  that  he  refuses  to  be  impressed  by  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  But  the  Christian  Church  cannot 
fairly  be  said  to  have  made  herself  attractive 
in  the  past ;  her  methods  of  Inquisition,  for 
example.  .  .  . 

It  is  difficult  to  write  apathetically  on  this 
extreme  instance  of  a  great  writer's  intolerance. 
One  single  example  will  suffice.  A  year  or 
two  ago,  a  Jew  called  Beilis  was  put  on  his  trial 

168 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

(after  an  imprisonment  of  nearly  three  years) 
for  the  murder  of  a  small  Christian  boy  named 
Yushinsky,  in  order  that  his  blood  might 
be  used  for  ritual  purposes.  Yushinsky, 
who  was  found  dead  under  peculiar  circum- 
stances, was  probably  a  Jew  himself,  but 
that  does  not  affect  the  point  at  issue.  Mr. 
Arthur  Henderson,  M.P.,  tried  to  arouse  an 
agitation  in  order  to  secure  the  freedom  of 
Beilis,  because  it  was  perfectly  evident  from 
the  behaviour  of  certain  parties  that  the 
prisoner's  conviction  would  be  the  signal  for 
the  outbreak  of  a  series  of  massacres  of  the 
Jews,  and  because  a  case  which  had  taken 
nearly  three  years  to  prepare  was  obviously 
a  very  thin  case.  Chesterton  wrote  a  ribald 
article  in  The  Daily  Herald  on  Mr.  Henderson's 
attempt  at  intervention,  saying  in  effect.  How 
do  you  know  that  Beilis  isn't  guilty  ?  Now  it 
is  impossible  to  hold  the  belief  that  Beilis 
might  be  guilty  and  at  the  same  time  disbelieve 
that  the  Jews  are  capable  of  committing 
human  sacrifice.  When  a  leading  Russian 
critic  named  Rosanov,  also  an  anti-Semite, 
issued  a  pamphlet  proclaiming  that  the  Jews 
did,  in  fact,  commit  this  loathsome  crime,  he 
was  ignominiously  ejected  from  a  prominent 
Russian  literary  society.  The  comparison 
should  appeal  to  Chesterton. 

169 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

The  nadir  of  these  antipathies  is  reached  in 
The  Flying  Inn,  a  novel  pubUshed  a  few  months 
before  the  Great  War  broke  out,  and  before 
we  all  made  the  discovery  that,  hold  what 
prejudices  we  will,  we  are  all  immensely- 
dependent  on  one  another.  In  this  book  we 
are  given  a  picture  of  England  of  the  future, 
conquered  by  the  Turk.  As  a  concession  to 
Islam,  all  intoxicating  drink  is  prohibited  in 
England.  It  is  amusing  to  note  that  a  few 
months  after  the  publication  of  this  silly 
prognostication,  the  greatest  Empire  in  Chris- 
tendom prohibited  drink  within  its  frontiers 
in  order  to  conquer  the  Turk — and  his  Allies. 
A  Patrick  Dalroy,  an  Irishman  (with  red  hair), 
and  of  course  a  giant,  has  been  performing 
Homeric  feats  against  the  conquering  Turks. 
A  Lord  Ivywood,  an  abstraction  bloodless  to 
the  point  of  albinism,  is  at  the  head  of  affairs 
in  England.  The  Jews  dominate  everything. 
Dalroy  and  Humphrey  Pump,  an  evicted  inn- 
keeper, discovering  that  drinks  may  still  be 
sold  where  an  inn-sign  may  be  found,  start 
journeying  around  England  loaded  only  with 
the  sign-board  of  "  The  Green  Man,"  a  large 
cheese,  and  a  keg  of  rum.  They  are,  in  fact,  a 
peripatetic  public-house,  and  the  only  demo- 
cratic institution  of  its  kind  left  in  England. 
Every  other  chapter  the  new  innkeepers  run 

170 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

into  Ivywood  and  his  hangers-on.  As  the 
story  wriggles  its  inconsequent  length,  the 
author  curses  through  the  mouths  of  his 
heroes.  He  anathematizes  teetotallers,  brewers, 
vegetarians,  temperance  drinks,  model  villages, 
aesthetic  poets,  Oriental  art,  Parliament,  poli- 
ticians, Jews,  Turks,  and  infidels  in  general, 
futurist  painting,  and  other  things.  In  the 
end,  Dalroy  and  Pump  lead  a  vast  insurrection, 
and  thousands  of  dumb,  long-suffering  English- 
men attack  Ivywood  in  his  Hall,  and  so  free 
their  country  from  the  Turk. 

Only  the  songs  already  described  in  Chapter 
V  preserve  this  book  from  extreme  dullness. 
Technically  it  is  poor.  The  action  is  as  scat- 
tered as  the  parts  of  a  futurist  picture.  A 
whole  chapter  is  devoted  to  a  picture  of  a 
newspaper  editor  at  work,  inventing  the  phrase- 
ology of  indefiniteness.  Epigrams  are  few  and 
are  very  much  overworked.  Once  a  catch- 
word is  sprung,  it  is  run  to  death.  The  Turk 
who  by  means  of  silly  puns  attempts  to  prove 
that  Islamic  civilization  is  better  than  European, 
never  ceases  in  his  efforts.  The  heartlessness 
of  Ivywood  is  continuous,  and  ends  in  insanity. 

Parts  of  The  Flying  Inn  convey  the  impres- 
sion that  Chesterton  was  tired  of  his  own  style 
and  his  own  manner  of  controversy,  and  had 
taken  to  parodying  himself.     The  arguments 

171 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

of  the  already-mentioned  Turk,  for  example, 
might  well  pass  for  a  really  good  parody  of  the 
theological  dispute  in  the  first  chapter  of  The 
Ball  and  the  Cross.  There,  it  may  be  remem- 
bered, two  men  (more  or  less)  discussed  the 
symbolism  of  balls  and  crosses.  In  The  Flying 
Inn  people  discuss  the  symbolism  of  crescents 
and  crosses,  and  the  Turk,  Misysra  Ammon, 
explains,  "  When  the  English  see  an  Enghsh 
youth,  they  cry  out  '  He  is  crescent !  '  But 
when  they  see  an  English  aged  man,  they  cry 
out  '  He  is  cross  !  '  "  On  these  lines  a  great 
deal  of  The  Flying  Inn  is  written. 

We  now  come  to  Chesterton's  political 
decadence,  traceable,  like  many  features  in  his 
history,  to  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc.  The  friendship 
between  G.K.C.  and  the  ex-Liberal  M.P.  for 
Rochdale  bore  a  number  of  interesting  fruits. 
There  were  the  amusing  illustrations  to  The 
Great  Enquiry,  an  amusing  skit  on  the  Tariff 
Reform  League,  to  Emmanuel  Burden  and 
The  Green  Overcoat.  But  curious  artificialities 
sprang  into  existence,  like  so  many  funguses, 
under  the  lengthening  shadow  of  Mr.  Belloc. 
To  him  is  due  the  far-fetchedness  of  some  of 
Chesterton's  pleading  in  support  of  the  miracu- 
lous element  in  religion.  To  him  also  is  due 
the  growing  antipathy  against  the  Liberal 
Party  and  the  party  system  in  general. 

172 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

Up  to  the  end  of  January,  1913,  Chesterton 
had  continued  liis  connection  with  The  Daily 
News.  On  January  28th  tliere  took  place,  at 
the  Queen's  Hall,  London,  a  debate  between 
Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  and  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc. 
The  latter  moved  "  That  if  we  do  not  re- 
establish the  institution  of  property,  we  shall 
re-establish  the  institution  of  slavery  ;  there 
is  no  third  course."  The  debate  was  an  ex- 
tremely poor  affair,  as  neither  combatant  dealt, 
except  parenthetically,  with  his  opponent's 
points.  In  the  course  of  it  Mr.  Shaw,  to  illus- 
trate an  argument,  referred  to  Chesterton  as 
"  a  flourishing  property  of  Mr.  Cadbury,"  a 
remark  which  G.K.C.  appears  to  have  taken 
to  heart.  His  quarrel  with  official  Liberalism 
was  at  the  moment  more  bitter  than  ever 
before.  Mr.  Belloc  had  taken  a  very  decided 
stand  on  the  Marconi  affair,  and  Mr.  Cecil 
Chesterton,  G.K.C. 's  brother,  was  sturdily  sup- 
porting him.  The  Daily  News,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  of  course  vigorously  defending  the 
Government.  Chesterton  suddenly  severed 
his  long  connection  with  The  Daily  News  and 
came  over  to  The  Daily  Herald.  This  paper, 
which  is  now  defunct,  except  in  a  weekly 
edition,  was  the  organ  of  Syndicalism  and 
rebellion  in  general.  In  a  letter  to  the  editor 
of    The    Herald,    Chesterton    explained    with 

173 


a    K.    CHESTERTON 

pathetic  irony  that  The  Daily  News  "  had  come 
to  stand  for  ahnost  everything  I  disagree  with  ; 
and  I  thought  I  had  better  resign  before  the 
next  great  measure  of  social  reform  made  it 
illegal  to  go  on  strike." 

A  week  or  so  later,  Chesterton  started  his 
series  of  Saturday  articles  in  The  Daily  Herald. 
His  first  few  efforts  show  that  he  made  a 
determined  attempt  to  get  down  to  the  intel- 
lectual level  of  the  Syndicalist.  But  anybody 
who  sits  down  to  read  through  these  articles 
will  notice  that  before  many  weeks  had  passed 
Chesterton  was  beginning  to  feel  a  certain  dis- 
comfort in  the  company  he  was  keeping.  He 
writes  to  say  that  he  likes  writing  for  The 
Daily  Herald  because  it  is  the  most  revolu- 
tionary paper  he  knows,  "  even  though  I  do 
not  agree  with  all  the  revolutions  it  advocates," 
and  goes  on  to  state  that,  personally,  he  likes 
most  of  the  people  he  meets.  Having  thus, 
as  it  were,  cleared  his  conscience  in  advance, 
Chesterton  let  himself  go.  He  attacked  the 
Government  for  its  alleged  nepotism,  dis- 
honesty, and  corruption.  He  ended  one  such 
article  with,  "  There  is  nothing  but  a  trumpet 
at  midnight,  calling  for  volunteers."  The  New 
Statesman  then  pubhshed  an  article,  "Trum- 
pets and  How  to  Blow  Them,"  suggesting, 
among  other  things,  that  there  was  little  use 

174 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

in  being  merely  destructive.  It  is  typical  of 
what  I  have  called  the  decadence  of  Chesterton 
that  he  borrowed  another  writer's  most  offen- 
sive description  of  a  lady  prominently  con- 
nected with  The  New  Statesman  in  order  to 
quote  it  with  glee  by  way  of  answer  to  this 
article.  The  Syndicalist  hates  the  Socialist 
for  his  catholicity.  The  Socialist  wishes  to 
see  the  world  a  comfortable  place,  the  Syndica- 
list merely  wishes  to  work  in  a  comfortable 
factory.  Chesterton  seized  the  opportunity, 
being  mildly  rebuked  by  a  Socialist  paper,  to 
declare  that  the  Fabians  "  are  constructing  a 
man-trap."  A  little  later  on  he  writes,  with 
reference  to  a  controversialist's  request,  that 
he  should  explain  why,  after  all,  he  was  not 
a  Socialist : 

If  he  wants  to  know  what  the  Marconi  Scandal  has 
saved  us  from,  I  can  tell  him.  It  has  saved  us  from 
Socialism.  My  God  !  what  Socialism,  and  run  by 
what  sort  of  Socialists  !  My  God  !  what  an  escape  ! 
If  we  had  transferred  the  simplest  national  systems 
to  the  State  (as  we  wanted  to  do  in  our  youth)  it  is 
to  these  men  that  we  should  have  transferred  them. 

There  never  was  an  example  of  more  muddled 
thinking.  Let  us  apply  it  to  something 
definite,  to  that  harmless,  necessary  article  of 
diet,  milk,  to  be  precise,  cow's  milk.  To-day 
milk  is  made  expensive  by  a  multiplicity  of 

175 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

men  who  have  interests  in  keeping  milk  expen- 
sive. There  are  too  many  milkmen's  wages 
to  be  paid,  too  many  milk-carts  to  be  built, 
too  many  shop-rents  paid,  and  too  much 
apparatus  bought,  simply  because  we  have 
not  yet  had  the  intelligence  to  let  any  munici- 
pality or  county  run  its  own  milk-service  and 
so  avoid  all  manner  of  duplication.  Chester- 
ton's answer  to  this  is :  "I  used  to  think  so, 
but  what  about  Lord  Murray,  Mr.  Lloyd 
George,  and  Mr.  Godfrey  Isaacs  ?  "  It  would 
be  as  relevant  to  say,  "  What  about  Dr. 
Crippen,  Jack  Sheppard,  and  Ananias,"  or, 
"  But  what  about  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  the 
Grand  Duke  Nicolas,  and  my  brother  ?  "  The 
week  later  Chesterton  addresses  the  Labour 
Party  in  these  words  : 

Comrades  (I  mean  gentlemen),  there  is  only  one 
real  result  of  anything  you  have  done.  You  have 
justified  the  vulgar  slander  of  the  suburban  Con- 
servatives that  men  from  below  are  men  who  merely 
want  to  rise.  It  is  a  lie.  No  one  knows  so  well  as 
you  that  it  was  a  lie  :  you  who  drove  out  Grayson 
and  deserted  Lansbury.  Before  you  went  into 
Parliament  to  represent  the  working  classes,  the 
working  classes  were  feared.  Since  you  have  repre- 
sented the  working  classes,  they  are  not  even  respected. 
Just  when  there  was  a  hope  of  Democracy,  you  have 
revived  the  notion  that  the  demagogue  was  only  the 
sycophant.     Just  when  there  had  begun  to  be  an 

176 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

English  people  to  represent,  you  have  been  paid  to 
misrepresent  them.  Get  out  of  our  path.  Take  your 
money ;   go. 

Regarding  which  passage  there  is  only  to  be 
said  that  it  is  grossly  unjust  both  to  the  Labour 
Party  and  to  the  working  classes.  It  was 
followed  up  in  subsequent  numbers  by  violent 
attacks  on  woman  suffrage  and  the  economic 
independence  of  women ;  a  proceeding  quite 
commendably  amusing  in  a  paper  with  a 
patron  saint  surnamed  Pankhurst.  A  promise 
to  say  no  more  about  Votes  for  Women  was 
followed  by  several  more  spirited  references 
to  it,  from  the  same  point  of  view.  After  which 
Chesterton  cooled  off  and  wrote  about  detec- 
tive stories,  telephones,  and  worked  himself 
down  into  an  all-round  fizzle  of  disgust  at 
things  as  they  are,  to  illustrate  which  "  I  will 
not  run  into  a  paroxysm  of  citations  again," 
as  Milton  said  in  the  course  of  his  Epistle  in 
two  books  on  Reformation  in  England. 

The  most  unpleasant  feature  of  The  Daily 
Herald  articles  is  the  assumption  of  superiority 
over  the  British  working  man,  expressing 
itself  in  the  patronizing  tone.  The  British 
working  man,  as  Chesterton  sees  him,  is  a  very 
different  person  from  what  he  is.  If  the  Middle 
Ages  had  been  the  peculiar  period  Chesterton 
appears  to  believe  it  was,  then  his  working 
M  177 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

man  would  be  merely  a  trifling  anachronism 
of  five  centuries  or  so.  But  he  is  not  even  that. 
Five  centuries  would  be  but  a  trifle  compared 
with  the  difference  between  him  and  his  real 
self.  Chesterton's  attitude  towards  the  work- 
ing man  must  resemble  that  of  a  certain 
chivalrous  knight  towards  the  distressed  dam- 
sel he  thought  he  had  rescued.  He  observed, 
"  Well,  little  one,  aren't  you  going  to  show  me 
any  gratitude  ?  "  And  the  lady  replied,  "  I 
wasn't  playing  Andromeda,  fathead,  I  was 
looking  for  blackberries.    Run  away  and  play." 

The  attitude  of  the  middle-class  suburbanite 
towards  the  working  man  and  his  wife  is  not 
exactly  graceful,  but  the  former  at  any  rate 
does  not  pretend  to  love  the  latter,  and  to  find 
all  decency  of  feeling  and  righteousness  of 
behaviour  in  them.  Chesterton  both  pretends 
to  reverence  the  working  classes,  and  exhibits 
a  profound  contempt  for  them.  He  is  never 
happier  than  when  he  is  telling  the  working 
classes  that  they  are  wrong.  He  delights  in 
attacking  the  Labour  Party  in  order  to  have 
the  supreme  satisfaction  of  demonstrating  that 
working  men  are  their  own  worst  enemies. 

At  the  beginning  of  August,  1914,  the  Great 
War  broke  out,  and  everything  seemed  changed. 
No  man  now  living  will  be  able  to  say  definitely 
what  effects  the  war  will  have  upon  literature, 

178 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

but  one  thing  is  certain  :  nothing  will  remain 
the  same.  We  have  already  learned  to  view 
each  other  with  different  eyes.  For  better  or 
for  worse,  old  animosities  and  party  cleavages 
have  given  way  to  unforeseen  combinations. 
To  assert  that  we  have  all  grown  better  would 
be  untrue.  But  it  might  reasonably  be  argued 
that  the  innate  generousness  of  the  British 
people  has  been  vitiated  by  its  childlike  trust 
in  its  journalists,  and  the  men  who  own  them. 
When  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  wrote  a  brilliant 
defence  of  the  British  case  for  intervention  in 
the  war,  his  mild  denigration  of  some  of  the 
defects  of  the  English  nation,  a  few  trivial 
inaccuracies,  and  his  perverse  bellicosity  of 
style  made  him  the  object  of  the  attentions  of 
a  horde  of  panic-stricken  heresy-hunters.  Those 
of  us  who  had  not  the  fortune  to  escape  the 
Press  by  service  abroad,  especially  those  of  us 
who  derived  our  living  from  it,  came  to  loathe 
its  misrepresentation  of  the  English  people. 
There  seemed  no  end  to  the  nauseous  vomits 
of  undigested  facts  and  dishonourable  preju- 
dices that  came  pouring  out  in  daily  streams. 
Then  we  came  to  realize,  as  never  before,  the 
value  of  such  men  as  Chesterton.  Christianity 
and  the  common  decencies  fare  badly  at  the 
hands  of  the  bishops  of  to-day,  and  the 
journalists  threw  them  over  as  soon  as  the 

179 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

war  began.  But,  unfortunately  for  us  all, 
G.K.C.  fell  seriously  ill  in  the  early  period  of 
the  war,  and  was  in  a  critical  state  for  many 
months.  But  not  before  he  had  published  a 
magnificent  recantation — for  it  is  no  less — of 
all  those  bitternesses  which,  in  their  sum,  had 
very  nearly  caused  him  to  hate  the  British. 
It  is  a  poem.  Blessed  are  the  Peacemakers, 

Of  old  with  a  divided  heart 

I  saw  my  people's  pride  expand, 
Since  a  man's  soul  is  born  apart 

By  mother  earth  and  fatherland. 

I  knew,  through  many  a  tangled  tale, 
Glory  and  truth  not  one  but  two  : 

King,  Constable  and  Amirail 

Took  me  like  trumpets  :    but  I  knew 

A  blacker  thing  than  blood's  own  dye 

Weighed  down  great  Hawkins  on  the  sea  ; 

And  Nelson  turned  his  blindest  eye 
On  Naples  and  on  liberty. 

Therefore  to  you  my  thanks,  O  throne, 

O  thousandfold  and  frozen  folk, 
For  whose  cold  frenzies  all  your  own 

The  Battle  of  the  Rivers  broke  ; 

Who  have  no  faith  a  man  could  mourn, 

Nor  freedom  any  man  desires  ; 
But  in  a  new  clean  light  of  scorn 

Close  up  my  quarrel  with  my  sires  ; 

Who  bring  my  English  heart  to  me. 
Who  mend  me  like  a  broken  toy  ; 

Till  I  can  see  you  fight  and  flee. 
And  laugh  as  if  I  were  a  boy. 

180 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

When  we  read  this  poem,  with  its  proclama- 
tion of  a  faith  restored,  Chesterton's  temporary 
absence  from  the  field  of  letters  appears  even 
more  lamentable.  For  even  before  his  break- 
down he  had  given  other  signs  of  a  resurrection. 
Between  the  overworked  descriptions  of  The 
Flying  Inn  and  the  little  book  The  Barbarism 
of  Berlin  which  closely  followed  it,  there  is  a  fine 
difference  of  style,  as  if  in  the  interval  Chester- 
ton had  taken  a  tonic.  Thus  there  is  a  jolly  pas- 
sage in  which,  describing  German  barbarism,  he 
refers  to  the  different  ways  of  treating  women. 

The  two  extremes  of  the  treatment  of  women 
might  be  represented  by  what  are  called  the  respect- 
able classes  in  America  and  in  France.  In  America 
they  choose  the  risk  of  comradeship  ;  in  France  the 
compensation  of  courtesy.  In  America  it  is  praati- 
cally  possible  for  any  young  gentleman  to  take  any 
young  lady  for  what  he  calls  (I  deeply  regret  to  say) 
a  joy-ride  ;  but  at  least  the  man  goes  with  the  woman 
as  much  as  the  woman  with  the  man.  In  France  the 
young  woman  is  protected  like  a  nun  while  she  is 
unmarried ;  but  when  she  is  a  mother  she  is  really  a 
holy  woman  ;  and  when  she  is  a  grandmother  she  is 
a  holy  terror.  By  both  extremes  the  woman  gets 
something  back  out  of  life.  France  and  America  aim 
alike  at  equality — America  by  similarity  ;  France 
by  dissimilarity.  But  North  Germany  does  actually 
aim  at  inequality.  The  woman  stands  up,  with  no 
more  irritation  than  a  butler  ;  the  man  sits  down, 
with  no  more  embarrassment  than  a  guest. 

181 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

And  so  on.  It  runs  very  easily  ;  we  recognize 
the  old  touch  ;  the  epigrams  are  not  worked 
to  death  ;  and  the  chains  of  argument  are  not 
mere  strings  of  damped  brilliancies.  And  before 
1914  had  come  to  its  end,  in  another  pamphlet, 
Letters  to  an  Old  Garihaldian,  the  same  style, 
the  same  freshness  of  thought,  and  the  same 
resurgent  strength  were  once  again  in  evidence. 
Then  illness  overcame. 

Of  all  futures,  the  future  of  literature  and 
its  professors  is  the  least  predictable.  We  have 
all,  so  to  speak,  turned  a  corner  since  August, 
1914,  but  we  have  not  all  turned  the  same  way. 
Chesterton  would  seem  to  have  felt  the  great 
change  early  in  the  war.  Soon  he  will  break 
his  silence,  and  we  shall  know  whether  we  have 
amongst  us  a  giant  with  strength  renewed  or 
a  querulous  Nonconformist  Crusader,  agreeing 
with  no  man,  while  claiming  to  speak  for 
every  man.  Early  in  the  course  of  this  study 
a  distinction  was  drawn  between  Christians 
and  Crusaders.  Chesterton  has  been  through- 
out his  career  essentially  a  Crusader.  He  set 
out  to  put  wrongs  to  rights  in  the  same  spirit ; 
in  much  the  same  spirit,  too,  he  incidentally 
chivvied  about  the  Jews  he  met  in  his  path, 
just  as  the  Crusaders  had  done.  He  fought  for 
the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  gained  it.     Like  the 

182 


A    DECADENT    OF    SORTS 

Crusaders,  he  professed  orthodoxy,  and,  hke 
them,  fell  between  several  "  orthodoxies." 
He  shared  their  visions  and  their  faith,  so  far 
as  they  had  any.  But  one  thing  is  true  of  all 
Crusaders,  they  are  not  necessarily  Christians. 
And  there  is  that  about  Chesterton  which 
sometimes  makes  me  wonder  whether,  after 
all,  he  is  not  "  a  child  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion "  in  a  sense  he  himself  does  not  suspect. 
He  has  cursed  the  barren  fig-tree  of  modern 
religious  movements.  But  there  comes  a  sus- 
picion that  he  denies  too  much ;  that  from 
between  those  supple  sentences  and  those  too 
plausible  arguments  one  may  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  features  of  a  mocking  spirit.  Chesterton 
has  given  us  the  keenest  enjoyment,  and  he 
has  provoked  thought,  even  in  the  silly  atheist. 
We  all  owe  him  gratitude,  but  no  two  readers 
of  his  works  are  likely  to  agree  as  to  the  causes 
of  their  gratitude.  That,  in  itself,  is  a  tribute. 
Wherefore  let  it  be  understood  that  in  writing 
this  study  I  have  been  speaking  entirely  for 
myself,  and  if  any  man  think  me  misguided, 
inappreciative,  hypercritical,  frivolous,  or  any- 
thing else,  why,  he  is  welcome. 


183 


BIBLIOGRAPHY    (To   July,    1915) 

Works 

1900.  Greybeards     at     Play.       Brimley     Johnson. 

Cheaper  edition,  1902. 
The  Wild  Knight.     Grant  Richards.     Second 
edition,  Brimley  Johnson,  1905.     Enlarged 
edition,  Dent,  1914. 

1901.  The  Defendant.      Brimley  Johnson.      Second 

enlarged    edition,    1902.      Cheap    edition, 
in  Dent's  Wayfarer's  Library,  1914. 

1902.  Twelve  Types.     A.   L.   Humphreys.     Partly 

reprinted     as     Five     Types,     1910,     same 
publisher.     Cheap  edition,  1911. 
G.  F.  Watts.    Duckworth.    In  Popular  Library 
of  Art.    Reissued  at  higher  price,  1914. 

1903.  Robert  Browning.    In  English  Men  of  Letters 

Series.    Macmillan. 

1904.  The  Patriotic  Idea.     In  England  a  Nation. 

Edited    by    Lucien  Oldershaw.       Brimley 
Johnson. 
The  Napoleon  of  Notting  Hill.     John  Lane. 
With  7  full-page  illustrations  by  W.  Graham 
Robertson  and  a  Map  of  the  Seat  of  War. 
185 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

1905.  The  Club  of  Queer  Trades.     Harper.     Cheap 

edition,  Hodder  and  Stoughton,  1912. 
Heretics.    John  Lane. 

1906.  Charles  Dickens.    Methuen,    Cheaper  edition, 

1907.    Popular  edition,  1913. 

1908.  The  Man  who  was  Thursday.    Arrowsmith. 
All  Things  Considered.    Methuen. 
Orthodoxy.    John  Lane. 

1909.  Tremendous  Trifles.    Methuen. 

1910.  Alarms  and  Discursions.    Methuen. 

Five  Types.     A.  L.  Humphreys.     Reprinted 

from  Twelve  Types,  1905. 
What's    Wrong    with    the    World?      Cassell. 

Cheap  edition,  1912. 
William    Blake.      Duckworth.      In    Popular 

Library  of  Art. 
George  Bernard  Shaw.      John  Lane.  '  Cheap 

edition,  1914. 
The  Ball  and  the  Cross.  Wells  Gardner,  Darton, 

1911.  The  Ballad  of  the  White  Horse.    Methuen. 
Appreciations  of  Dickens.     Dent.     Reprinted 

prefaces  from  Everyman  Series  edition  of 
Dickens. 
The  Innocence  of  Father  Brown.    Cassell. 

1912.  Simplicity  and  Tolstoy.     A.  L.  Humphreys. 

Another   edition,   H.  Siegle.     In  Watteau 

Series,  1913. 
A  Miscellany  of  Men.    Methuen. 
Manalive.    Nelson. 
186 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1913.  Magic.    Martin  Seeker. 

The  Victorian  Age  in  Literature.  Williams 
and  Norgate.    In  Home  University  Library. 

1914.  The  Wisdom  of  Father  Brown.    Cassell. 

The  Flying  Inn.  Methuen.  (The  Songs  of 
the  Simple  Life  appeared  originally  in  The 
New  Witness.) 

The  Wild  Knight.  Dent.  Enlarged  edition, 
first  published  1900. 

The  Barbarism  of  Berlin.     Cassell. 

Letters  to  an  Old  Garibaldian.    Methuen. 

1915.  Poems.    Burns  and  Gates. 

And  articles  on  Tolstoy,  Stevenson,  Tennyson, 
and  Dickens  in  a  series  of  booklets  pub- 
lished by  The  Bookman,  1902-1904. 

Prefaces  to  the  Following  Books 

1902.  Past  and  Present.     By  Thomas  Carlyle.     In 

World's  Classics.    Grant  Richards. 

1903.  Life    of  Johnson.      Extracts    from    Boswell. 

Isbister. 

1904.  The   Autocrat   of  the   Breakfast    Table.      By 

O.    W.    Holmes.      Red    Letter    Library. 

Blackie. 
Sartor  Resartus.     By  Thomas  Carlyle.     Cas- 

sell's  National  Library. 
The  Pilgrim's  Progress.     By  John  Bunyan. 

Cassell's  National  Library. 
187 


G.    K.    CHESTERjTO|N 

1905.  Creatures  That  Once  Were  Men.     By  Maxim 

Gorky.     Rivers. 

1906  etc.    Works  of  Dickens.     In  Everyman  Library. 
Dent. 

1906.  Essays.    By  Matthew  Arnold.    In  the  Every- 

man Library.    Dent. 
Literary  London.    By  Elsie  M.  Lang.    Werner 
Laurie. 

1907.  The  Book  of  Job.    (Wellwood  Books.) 
From   Workhouse   to    Westminster ;    the   Life 

Story  of  Will   Crooks,   M.P.     By   George 
Haw.    Cassell.    Cheaper  edition,  1908. 

1908.  Poems.    By  John    Ruskin.    Muses   Library. 

Routledge. 
The  Cottage  Homes  of  England.     By  W.  W. 
Crotch.     Industrial  Publishing  Co. 

1909.  A  Vision  of  Life.    By  Darrell  Figgis.    Lane. 
Meadows  of  Play.    By  Margaret  Arndt.    Elkin 

Mathews. 

1910.  Selections  from  Thackeray.    Bell. 

Eyes  of  Youth.    An  Anthology.    Herbert  and 
Daniel. 

1911.  Samuel  Johnson.    Extracts  from,  selected  by 

Ahce  Meynell.     Herbert  and  Daniel. 
The  Book  of  Snobs.     By  W.  M.  Thackeray. 
Red  Letter  Library.    Blackie. 
188 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1912.  Famous    Paintings    Reproduced    in     Colour, 

Cassell. 

The  English  Agricultural  Labourer.  By  A.  H. 
Baverstock.     The  Vineyard  Press. 

Fables.  By  JEsap.  Translated  by  V.  S. 
Vernon  Jones.  Illustrated  by  Arthur  Rack- 
ham.    Heinemann. 

1913.  The    Christmas    Carol.      In    the    Waverley 

Dickens. 

1915.     Bohemia's  Claim  for  Freedom.     The  London 
Czech  Committee. 

Illustrations  to  the  Following  Books  by 

Other  Writers 

1901.     Nonsense   Rhymes.     By   W.    C.   Monkhouse. 
Brimley  Johnson.    Cheaper  edition,  1902. 

1903.  The  Great  Enquiry.    By  H.  B.  (Hilaire  Belloc). 

Duckworth. 

1904.  Emmanuel     Burden.       By     Hilaire     Belloc. 

Methuen. 

1905.  Biography  for  Beginners.      By  E.   Clerihew. 

Cheaper     edition,    Werner     Laurie,    1908. 
Cheap  edition,  1910. 

1912.     The    Green    Overcoat.      By    Hilaire    Belloc. 
Arrowsmith. 

189 


G.    K.    CHESTERTON 

Contributions  to  Periodicals 
Bookman.    From  1898  onwards,  passim. 

The  Speaker  (afterwards  The  Nation).     From  1898 
onwards. 

The  Daily  News.    Weekly  article,  1900-1913.     Also 
occasional  poems  and  reviews. 

The  Daily  Herald.    Weekly  article,  1913-1914. 
The  Illustrated  London  News.    1905-1914  ;   1915- 

The    Eye-Witness    (afterwards    The    New    Witness). 

Poems  and  articles,  1911  onwards. 
Also  correspondence  columns  of  The  Tribune  (1906- 

1908),    The   Clarion,    and    the    London    Press    in 

general. 

The  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Review  (afterwards   The 
British  Review).     Articles  1911,  etc. 

The  Dublin  Review.     Occasional  articles. 


Contributions  to  Official  Publications 

Evidence  before  the  Joint  Select  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Lords  and  the  House  of  Commons  on 
Stage  Plays  (Censorship),  included  in  the  Minutes 
of  Evidence,  1909. 

190 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Speeches 

1908.  The  Press.  Speech  at  Pan- Anglican  Congress. 
Proceedings  published  by  The  Times. 

1910.  What  to  do  with  the  Backward  Races.  Speech 
at  the  Nationalities  and  Subject  Races 
Conference,  London.  Proceedings  published 
by  P.  S.  King. 

1914.  Do  Miracles  Happen?  Report  of  a  Discussion 
at  the  Little  Theatre  in  January,  1914. 
Published  as  a  pamphlet  by  The  Christian 
Commonwealth  Co. 


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